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Useful Weekend Fluff: Your Fucking Recipes

I hate to distract anyone from the serious business of talking about how FUCKING AWESOME we all are, but it’s come to my attention that many Shapelings are spectacular cooks, some with dazzling signature recipes, and I would like to know more about these things. Tell us, please, about those recipes. Plus any helpful tips you have for those of us who are rather unspectacular cooks.

Speaking of which, one commenter (and I’m sorry I don’t remember who and couldn’t find the comment again when I skimmed back) said something in that thread about feeling like her accomplishments were too mundane to merit unabashed horn-tooting (though happily, she got over it), and the funny thing to me was, one of the first things she listed was being able to sing. Shapelings, I can do a lot of things well, but hoo boy, singing is not one of them. That is no boring, pedestrian talent/achievement to my mind. I have been told a million times that anyone can sing with training, but I would seriously need to put in years of work to be able to do karaoke without causing the audience physical and emotional pain. (I have learned to shut up people who insist, “Oh, come on, it’s karaoke! No one will judge!” by saying, “No, you don’t understand. The problem is not that I’m worried about embarrassing myself. The problem is that you will be embarrassed for me.” That usually makes people drop it. And if you think I’m exaggerating, ask Sweet Machine about playing Rock Band with me.) Xander in the Buffy musical episode? Pierce Brosnan in Mamma Mia? Finn on Glee? All way, way, WAY better singers than I am. WAY better. (And I have seen what people with training and/or talent and/or better ears than mine say about all of them, so don’t even try to tell me there is hope for a way, way, WAY worse singer than those.) Basically, anyone who can successfully hit the note they were trying for more than about one out of a hundred times is a way better singer than I am. I suppose it’s possible that with extensive training, I could become a passable, or at least somewhat less cringeworthy singer. But I could probably never be good, I could definitely never be great, and since voice training is not a big priority for me, I will most likely remain mind-blowingly bad at it for the rest of my days.

And that’s perfectly OK. I’m Kate fucking Harding either way. But I bring up that particular shortcoming to remind you all that things you might think are too ordinary and unexciting to count as Things That Make You Awesome can, in fact, seem like superpowers to the rest of us. Those of you who can sing, cook, sew, do math, program, make small children like you, keep yourself (let alone other people) organized, play team sports without frustrating the rest of the team to death, function with chronic pain, stretch a dollar, keep from swearing constantly, make a point succinctly or function without half a pot of coffee first thing in the morning all amaze me to varying degrees. Whatever talent, skill or even coping mechanism you take for granted would probably amaze someone. Don’t forget that when assessing your own awesomeness.

Y’know TropicalChrome I saw the word pot in that brownie recipe so many times… and then when I read it I was actually kindof disappointed. (I’m sure they are still amazing.)

Sadly cooking is not something I can do very well so I have no recipe’s to share. I am however excited to see these recipes and share them with my Chef so that he can cook them and I can show off one of my strongest skills, appreciating amazing food.

This is my family’s secret tea biscuit recipe. I don’t know who started making them, but my grandma makes a great version of them, my dad’s is even better, and I think I may have perfected them. They’re too good not to share with the world, although I don’t think a printed recipe can quite compare to being shown how to do it perfectly by someone who knows.

Ok, here’s a cooking hint for all y’all. If you like lasagna, but only have to cook for one or two, make it in a bread pan. No joke, a bread pan is slightly bigger than a lasagna noddle, it’s perfect.

Anyway, here’s a recipe for squash lasagna.

Mix together:
2 cups of mashed squash, such as butternut or pumpkin. Roast the squash yourself*, or get it out of a can, whatever.
1-2 teaspoons rubbed sage (more is good too).
S & P to taste.

Separately, mix together:
1.5(ish) cups ricotta cheese.
1/2 cup (or more) of other cheese — the original recipe calls for grated parmesan, but I like part parmesan and feta mixed.
a little S & P.

So, you slick up a bread pan with a little olive oil. Then put a lasagna noodle in the bottom, and cover it with half the squash mixture. Then put on another lasagna noodle, followed by half the cheese mixture. Then another noodle, rest of the squash, another noodle, the rest of the cheese. Top with some mozzarella and parmesan cheese. Cover with a piece of aluminum foil. Bake at 400* for 45 minutes, then take the foil off and bake another 20 minutes, till melty and golden on top.

*To roast squash: cut in half vertically and lay face down on cookie sheet. Heat over to 350* and cook for about an hour; it’s done when you can easily stick a fork all the way through. Then scoop all the squashy goodness out of the skins.

TIP: when making apple pie, substitute ground almonds for some of the flour when making the pastry – it makes the shortcrust divine. Also, place a layer of flaked almonds and raisins on the base before placing the apple and egg custard, its stops the base going too soggy and they soak up some of the juices for extra yumminess.

do all these things and you can officially call it Stupendous Apple Pie!!

Spray the pan. Put the fruit on the bottom. Put the stuff on top. Bake for 45 minutes at about 375*. If you’re feeling fancy, you can add oatmeal or some diced nuts to your topping too.

Best Appetizer Ever:
Good French bread (toasted if you like)
goat/yogurt/cream cheese
crunchy vegetable (radishes preferred, but cucumbers or roasted beets work just as well)
chives

Toast the bread if you want. Spread the cheese on top lightly. Sprinkle with salt (go for the fancy grinder kind of salt). Top with finely chopped chives, then with the sliced veggies. This is totally classy and really easy.

In a dutch oven/large pot, heat the chicken broth to boiling. Add vegetables and spices and additional water to cover veggies (if needed) and simmer 20 minutes/until vegetables are soft. While the veggies are simmering, cook the chicken breasts (foreman grill works great for this) and shred with two forks. Once veggies are done, remove from heat, add the uncooked cous cous and chicken, stir, cover and let sit five minutes. Stir some more and enjoy!

If you have them, I’d recommend adding golden raisins to the mix with the cous cous and chicken for extra Moroccan feel.

Melt all ingredients but the oats in a pan, stirring constantly. Mix in the oats. Press into a greased baking tray. Cook at 190 deg C for roughly 20 mins, or until golden. Fruit or chocolate or nuts can be added at the same time as the oats.

Fry the onion and bacon in a pan. Add the flour, sugar and whatever seasonings. Stir in the tomatos and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and wait to cool until at least tepid (this is to stop the milk from going weird when you add it). Addd milk and mushroms. Bring to the boil. Serve.

I use my one and only piece of fancy cookware – the Le Creuset that an ex-girlfriend left at my husband’s*. It’s the round pot? With the lid? Good size for making a small batch of chili? Alternately, you can just use a large oven-proof skillet.

Cook down the bacon until it’s about halfway done and you have some grease in the pan. Throw the onions and garlic in and cook till the onions start getting soft. Throw the chicken in and cook about 5 minutes. Throw the potatoes in, cook another 5 minutes. Season to taste with pepper, poultry seasoning, cayenne – whatever mood you’re in. Cover the whole thing with grated cheese and bake in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender.**

Mushrooms are also a good addition to this

*He was going to throw it away because “it’s so damn heavy, I don’t even know where it came from, I never use it, blah blah blah.”

**depending on your bacon, this can come out kind of oily. The potatoes absorb a lot, but if you’re worried about that, go ahead and drain the bacon grease. I also don’t have salt on the list, because the bacon can make things pretty salty – YMMV

I use a 3 quart casserole dish with a lid, but anything of approximately that size that you can cover works fine, as long as it isn’t a very shallow cake pan (this will cause your casserole to burn, which sucks).

Chop onion and garlic.

Cook and drain pasta and broccoli. Dump into casserole dish.

Melt butter over LOW heat and stir in flour.

In another saucepan, heat milk (again, over low heat–and keep an eye on it, because you don’t want it to boil).

Stir butter and flour into milk before it starts to solidify again. This will look kind of weird. DO NOT BE CONCERNED.

Dump garlic, onions, and cheese into milk mixture.

Stir until cheese is melted and onions are tender. Make sure the milk doesn’t boil.

Dump all of this in with the noodles and broccoli. Add drained tuna and stir until it is mixed well (there should be some liquid on the bottom. If there isn’t, add a little more milk). Smooth the top down until it is flat and sprinkle breadcrumbs evenly over it. Cover and cook for 25 minutes at 350 degrees F.

this is a modification I got out of a recipe book I won when I was a teenager at, like, the state fair? maybe? In the book they were called “Congo Bars,” but I never really liked that, so I started calling them “Politically Insensitive Bars,” but that isn’t terribly evocative of how delicious they are. Then, I realized that every time I brought them to an event, everyone would OOH and AAAAAAH about HOW OMFG GOOD they were, when they are one of the easiest things ever in life to make. So they are now called “Self-Esteem Bars,” because they will always make you feel good about your skillz.

put the butter in the pan and stick it in the oven (which you have set to 350 degrees) and let it melt. when it’s melted, or mostly melted, sprinkle the crumbs over it. pour the sweetened condensed milk over that. it’s okay if it doesn’t go on every single inch of the crust. sprinkle that with chocolate chips, then coconut, then almonds. bake until it looks gooey, maybe 20-25 minutes.

the best part is you can mix and match chips and other toppings. try with peanut butter chips, other nuts, or whatever strikes your fancy.

Whatever talent, skill or even coping mechanism you take for granted would probably amaze someone. Don’t forget that when assessing your own awesomeness.

Okay that made me tear up a little. I didn’t participate in the horn-tooting thread of awesomeness because I, too, felt like my strengths were too unimpressive to toot about, especially compared to other Shapelings’ mind-blowing skillz. But you’re right, Kate. I’m sure plenty of people are impressed by things about me that I never give myself credit for. Thanks for that.

For our vegan shapelings (and anyone who likes Japanese food or stir fry in general)

Yasai Itame:

1.) Slice up one white onion and stir fry in apx 2 Tbsp sesame oil.
2.) Add about half a head of nappa (chinese cabbage), half a bell pepper, one carrot – all sliced into thin strips- and then one package of mung bean sprouts (as many as you like, I’ve gone from 6 oz to 12 oz. Love bean sprouts!)
3.)Douse liberally with soy sauce and as much black pepper as you can handle. Serve over steamed rice. Tastes even better warmed up the day after.

4.) Try not to wreck your grocery budget by buying extra veggies to make this twice a week like I have for the last two months

This pumpkin pie is very dense because it’s actually a just-pumpkin pie as opposed to a pumpkin custard pie as is more common. This means you can feed it to people who are allergic to eggs. Substituting cooked sweet potatoes for the pumpkin works fine, too.

Although the recipe technically only calls for two spices, I traditionally spice to taste. Allspice and nutmeg both go well with this. I was actually astonished when I went back to check the recipe and there was so little spice in it. We used to just keep tossing in spices until one of the tasters drifting through the kitchen said it was enough. (very scientific, my family was.)

You can make the pie a little richer by substituting half-and-half for part or all of the milk.

We always served this with fresh whipped cream. Ice cream would be ok, but the pie is plenty sweet already.

drain and press the tofu; defrost and squeeze all the water out of the spinach; grate the cloves of garlic on a microplane. put those three ingredients, plus salt and olive oil and romano or parm, into a food processor and pulse everything until it’s all mixed up together. if i don’t feel like using the food processor, i just use my fingers to crumble up the tofu as much as possible, and mix everything together with a fork. it works just fine.

grate the mozzarella cheese. mix half into the tofu/spinach mixture. you can also, if you want, add a beaten egg, but i don’t find it necessary.

spread 1/3 of the sauce in the bottom of a pan. i use a 9×13 pan, which means that i don’t always get to use all the shells, but if you are careful, you can stuff the extra shells and put them in an 8×8 square cake pan. stuff each shell with the mixture — i tend to overstuff them, and then put the shell into the pan open side down.

cover the stuffed shells with the rest of the sauce, sprinkle the other half of the mozzarella on top, and bake at 350 for 45 minutes. or bake at 350 for 30 minutes and then shove under the broiler for another five minutes or so to brown the cheese.

* sometimes i use jarred sauce, because it can sometimes be disgustingly cheaper than making my own sauce from scratch. but when i make sauce…

saute the onion in olive oil. sometimes i add a little butter, too. when the onion gets translucent and starts caramelizing a bit, grate the garlic (i don’t use the smallest option on the grater; i just a microplane, like what i use for citrus zesting) right into the pan and let it cook for about a minute. not too much more than that. then add the spices. if the onions and garlic absorbed all the oil, just add a little more, so there’s some for the spices to cook in a bit. then dump in the tomatoes and let them cook for a while. maybe 45 minutes? when they start to get thick and look delicious, the sauce is ready.

sauce options: a tablespoon of sugar, to be added once the tomatoes are super hot. a splash of cream or half and half to make the sauce creamier, about five minutes before it’s finished. a glug of red wine, before you add the tomatoes. fresh basil, right at the end, if you’re serving it over pasta that won’t be baked. a handful or two of romano or parmesan a few minutes before it’s served. tomato paste (1 – 2 tblsps), to be added before you add the tomatoes. mushrooms, sliced and fried before or with the onions until golden brown. etc.

First things first: pick your cheese. A mature (Americans would call it sharp) cheddar is a good default; my prefered choice is a smoked Wensleydale. Try a smoked hard/crumbly cheese; it’s awesome.

Secondly: if you’ve got milk that’s on the turn, use it. If not, sour it with lots of lemon juice (a good tablespoon for your 150ml of milk). It makes the scones much lighter.

Thirdly: freeze the butter and then grate it and then freeze it again. It wants to be really, really cold.

Heat the oven to 220C/425F/Gas 7. Lightly flour a baking sheet.

Sift the salt and flour together and very briefly rub in the butter, making sure there are no big lumps left. Mix in the grated cheese and give that a quick rub too, if there are big bits. You’re looking for little lumps of butter and cheese – smaller than peas – with some flour mixed in, and all coated with flour.

Add the milk gradually, stirring with a knife until it comes together, and then briefly kneading with your hands. Work the dough as little as possible. Put it on a floured worktop and pat it out to about 2cm/1inch thick. Cut with cutters cutting directly downwards – don’t twist the cutter at all, or the scone won’t rise properly.

If you want the scones shiny, you can glaze with either milk or a beaten egg – if you want them soft, sprinkle with a little flour.

Bake for 12-15 minutes, until well risen and golden. Eat within 24 hours, or freeze and reheat in an oven when required.

These will be light enough and rich enough that you don’t need to butter them, but they’ll be even better with butter.

The word “scone”, by the way, is pronounced to rhyme with “gone” or “swan” or something. It is only pronounced “scoan” by people who think it sounds posh. :)

Pieces of boneless chicken, I like them a bit bigger than bite sized
Soy sauce
Ginger, either ground into a paste or peeled and minced
Lemon squash (as in, sweetened lemon-y concentrate) – OR you could probably use lemonade mixed with a bit of ordinary lemon juice – the sugar is necessary.
Salt and Pepper
Red chilli powder
Oil (I usually use olive)

Rub the ginger into the chicken and season it lightly with the salt and pepper.
Mix the lemon squash, soya sauce, chilli powder (quantities depend on the stuff you’re using and how hot you like your food) in a bowl, add more salt and pepper, and marinate the chicken in the mixture for a little while.
Heat up a tiny bit of olive oil in a pan and put the pieces of chicken in – and stand back because it all gets very spluttery.
The marinade caramelises very quickly, so keep moving the chicken around, occasionally spooning over a bit more marinade. Ignore the burning smell – it’s burnt sugar and the pan will need a good soak before it’s cleaned, but it’s worth it.
Cook the chicken till done.

This stuff is amazing. It’s dark and glossy and sticky and sweet on the outside, but moist and gingery and lovely on the inside. It’s incredibly easy to do, and goes well with anything reasonably light – today I served this with lemon rice and it was delicious.

My bear bought me The Flavor Bible, and I’ve been learning to cook without recipes, which is AWESOME. But that also means that if I make little recipe cards for my grandchildren or something, they will sound like cooking does in my head:

In a pan:
1. Get some olive oil going
2. 1 lb or so of ground turkey
3. Chop the fuck out of an onion, or scallions ’cause yer fancy
4. Maybe throw some mushrooms in there
5. Cook that shit
6. When that shit is almost cooked, throw some cherry tomatoes on there, so they explode in your mouth while you eat them and you are like FUCK molten tomato pop.

You may question the necessity of step 6, but I am telling you, if you serve this, everybody will be like, “Oh, so colorful!” and they won’t even take back the compliment when they are chewing in silent, burning pain.

In a pot:
7. Rice and water, gettin’ freaky

In a blender:
8. A bunch of goddamn spinach
9. Some garlic or whatever
10. Enough fresh basil to kill a goat
11. Fresh oregano never hurt nobody
12. Some vaguely chopped tomatoes
13. Some parmesan. Maybe more. Okay, a lot. Shit, was that half the tub? Whatever, it’ll be good.
14. No kidding, pour some orange juice in there. Fuckin’ orange juice, who would’ve thought?

15. Wander off and look at blogs for a while. Forget what you were doing. Now your rice is burned. Good fucking job, we’re having egg noodles now.

16. Make some goddamn egg noodles.

17. Pour the spinach goop on your turkey. Get it all bubbly. Maybe you have too much orange juice and it’s kind of soggy. That would suck. Sorry, all the measuring cups were dirty, it is what it is, you can eat a sandwich if you’d rather, it won’t offend me.

18. Now it’s all warm. Ladle that shit over some rice. Put the rest in the freezer for bonus lazy meal later.

19. Congratulations, you are all fat now. Maybe it is time for some ice cream.

20. You have to clean the fucking blender now.

21. Swish some water around in there, kinda back and forth. Yeah, good enough, leave that all gross in the sink. The gnomes will clean it later? I’m busy, I got things to do.

22. Oh no now i’m drunk. what happen

23. Lay in bed with the spinnies and reflect on the awesomeness of your life

The bajillionth way I tried to make tomatoes when my garden outproduced my household’s ability to eat them

1. Thaw puff pastry dough according to the instructions it came with.
2. Slice a (or several) tomato into 1/4 inch slices.
3. Cut the puff pastry dough into squares that are slightly bigger than the tomato slices.
3. Slice some cheese (I prefer mozzarella, my husband prefers cheddar) into 1/8-or-so inch squares that are about the same size as the puff pastry squares.
4. Put the puff pastry on a baking sheet, per the instructions it came with.
5. Put the cheese slices onto the puff pastry squares, and put the tomato slices on top.
6. Optional: sprinkle Parmesan onto the whole thing.
7. Bake according to the puff pastry instructions.

If I use mozzarella and parmesan, I usually make some pesto to drizzle on top when they’re done baking. I’ve also added garlic powder, basil, or oregano between the pastry dough and the cheese.

New commenter (long-ish-time lurker) here, but this lured me out. Here’s a scone recipe that I gave as two Christmas presents — recipe and actual scones — low-budget uni student, you know. (*bows*)

Preheat your oven to 375F, and take out a cookie sheet.
Cut 5Tbsp. of unsalted butter in small chunks, and put ’em in a bowl in the fridge to chill out.
Fluff together 2cups flour, 4Tbsp. sugar, 1Tbsp. baking powder (as above, powder, not soda!), 1/2Tbsp. cream of tartar, and 1/2tsp. salt, with a whisk or a fork.
Use a pastry blender (or fork, if you like, but not your fingers) to blend the butter into the flour mix until it’s ‘sandy’, and there aren’t any big lumps (really little ones are fine).
Stir in 1/2 to 1 cup of ‘toppings’. I like to get creative, but chopped dried cherries and mini chocolate chips are a good standby. You can use other dried fruits, like peaches or apples or apricots, or crystallized ginger and orange zest…. you get the idea.
Pour in 1 cup of ‘whipping cream’ or ‘table cream’ (oh my, cream? real dairy cream? I can just hear the ‘don’tchaknow that’s /fat/?’ chorus), and stir lightly until you’ve got a lump. Dump it on the counter and make it into a disc-ish shape with your hands, about 8″ diameter, 1.5-2″ thick.
Drizzle a bit of cream that didn’t pour out of the box/cup on top, pat it to spread, and sprinkle a spoon of sugar over the top. Cut it in eight pieces, arrange on cookie sheet, and bake them for about 13 minutes (until they’re just a bit golden on top).

Anna — hey, neat, I was going to post my version of those! In my case, it’s two cups graham cracker crumbs, one bag of chocolate chips, one cup of sweetened condensed milk. Pour into GREASED pan*, cook at 350 until done. Otherwise known as “if you keep these three ingredients on hand, you will never have to worry about what to bring to the potluck”.

*This is important. If you make these in a disposable aluminum pan and forget to grease it, the bonding force holding the cookies to the pan will exceed the force holding the aluminum together and you will poke holes in the pan attempting to remove the cookies.

Completely Awesome Collard Greens:

These were served at a tapas place near my apartment (why did it take us so long to get around to going there?? Well, Now We Know.) and it was one of those glorious moments where you order something delicious in a restaurant and go “Hey, I could make this. No, really, I could make this and it would be easy!”

Before you do anything else, put the raisins in a bowl and pour very hot water over them. Ignore them while you do the next few steps. Take one bunch of collard greens, cut out tough inner ribs, shred to maybe 1/4 inch strips. (Feed tough inner ribs to significant other/rabbit/stockpot.) Slice a clove of garlic, or get 1T or so of chopped/pureed garlic.

Heat good olive oil (this is important) in a large skillet. No, more oil than that; don’t be shy. Sautee the garlic and pine nuts until they start to brown. Add golden raisins and collards, plus a little bit of the raisin water (or other water, but you’ve got the raisiny stuff on hand). Sautee until collards are tender (about a minute after they turn bright green. If they start turning that sad browny-yellow color, remove from heat immediately.).

Add about 1T lemon juice and quite a bit of salt, tasting until the flavors pop. The salt in this recipe is a flavor in its own right, rather than just a flavor enhancer; the salt and lemon should give it a nice briney kick in the aftertaste.

Put in bowl, devour.

This would work well with kale, spinach, dandelion greens, various mustard greens, pretty much anything bitter and leafy. It would almost certainly be amazing with a good spicy Italian sausage if you were feeling carnivorous.

Mix everything into a giant bowl and dress with vinaigrette or other dressing of your choice. I usually either make a very simple vinaigrette out of olive oil, red wine vinegar and/or lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Or, if I’m feeling especially lazy, which is often, I will just drizzle olive oil and lemon juice/red wine directly into the bowl, then season with salt and pepper (sometimes cayenne) to taste.

After 10 min, add 1 cup whole wheat flour, mix in mixer. (KitchenAid mixer is lovely. I cannot handle kneading. I may have given this appliance a name…)

When that’s all mixed, add in 2ish cups white flour. Mix for a while.

Add in 3 tbsp of nicely flavored extra virgin olive oil, 1 tbsp dried rosemary (or fresh if you have it), some dried garlic – NOT garlic powder! (or freshly minced garlic if you want), and 1 tsp salt. Mix that all in. Garlic and rosemary are optional, but the salt is not. And do not add the salt directly to the water with the yeast, unless you want them to die.

Now, add more flour, 1/2 cup or so at a time, until the dough is nice and elastic. I do this part slowly, since I live in a desert. You’ll end up adding 1-2.5 cups more flour, depending on your altitude and humidity.

Mix for a few more minutes.

Transfer to oiled bowl to rise until doubled in size, somewhere around 1hour. Relax, have a drink, read all the smart commenters on Shapely Prose.

When it’s risen, punch down the dough aggressively. Divide into 2 somewhat equal portions. Freeze one of these if you wish.

Take the other portion and smoosh it out into a 9 x 13 in (ish) jelly roll pan, or a nice oval shape ~1 inch thick. Let rise a bit more, then cover the top generously with some more olive oil, sprinkle on some sea salt (FFS don’t forget this part!) and sprinkle on some parmesan/asiago/whatever. Let rise a bit longer. This whole section usually takes 30 min-45 min, for me.

Bake at 400F for 20-30 min, until nice and golden on top. Overcooking will result in dry bread, which you can then make into crostini (oooo fancy!)

Then, nom nom nom. Makes nice bread for paninis.

This bread is very forgiving. I think it’s a nice place to start if you’ve never tried baking bread before.

(And, wow, I must have made this a lot, since I wrote all that from memory.)

* 1 lb of potatoes, sliced into thin wedges. No need to peel them if they have good skins and are free of eyes.
* A heavy oven-proof dish
* 2 tbsp of olive oil + the juice of one lemon
* fresh or dried herbs (I went with fresh oregano & parsley, finely chopped)
* sea salt
* A shake of cayenne pepper or hot paprika for color
* I added 4-6 cloves of garlic, chopped, because obviously, garlic makes everything better.

Method:

* Mix olive oil, lemon juice, a bunch of salt, the herbs and garlic together until it tastes good.
* Toss with the potatoes, sprinkle a little black pepper and the cayenne or paprika for color
* Put the mixture in the pan and put it in the oven.
* Leave it there for…an hour? Mix occasionally to re-coat potatoes with the lemony-olive-y goodness and help them brown evenly. You want the potatoes to be golden brown with slightly burny edges and cooked all the way through but still be firm.

Wash the squash and prick it all over with a fork. Rub it with olive oil and roast in a 400 degree oven about an hour, ’til a fork penetrates easily to the center, and your kitchen smells totally awesome. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Remove skin, scoop out seeds and pulp, and cut up in chunks (which should be falling apart as you work). [Note: this can be done a day or two ahead. Refrigerate squash until needed.]

Simmer the broth in a saucepan on the stove.

Sauté the pancetta and sausage over medium heat until fairly well browned and crisp at the edges. Remove from heat. Melt a tablespoon of butter in a large saucepan. Add the leeks and sauté gently about five minutes, stirring occasionally, until the leeks are translucent. Add the rice and sauté a few minutes, stirring constantly, until the rice turns milky white.

Add two ladlefuls of broth and, stirring constantly, cook the mixture for about 15 to 20 minutes at an active simmer, adding broth so as to keep it fairly soupy while it cooks. After 15 minutes, start tasting the rice for doneness. As the rice approaches completion, allow the mixture to get a little drier. (but, yeah, not as dry as I served it last time I made it)

When the rice is cooked, add the squash, pancetta, sausage, cheese, minced sage, and the other tablespoon of butter. Correct seasoning. Mix well and serve in a warmed bowl or individual serving dishes.

Line a smallish pan with baking paper. Combine crumbs and butter and press into base of lined pan. Refrigerate for 1 hour or until firm.
Use an electric mixer to beat cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth. Gradually beat in cream. Place water into a small bowl. Sprinkle over gelatine. Stir until gelatine dissolves. Set aside to cool slightly then beat into filling until combined.
Lick cream-cheese mix off mixer.
Pour filling over base. Refrigerate for 3 to 4 hours or until set.
Meanwhile, make jello, following packet directions. Set aside to cool to room temperature. Pour
into a shallow dish. Refrigerate for 2 to 3 hours or until jello starts to thicken (like the consistency
of thickened cream). Pour jello over cheesecake. Refrigerate for a further 3 hours or until jello is set. Cut into squares to serve.

I guess admitting to cooking and eating this makes me a bad fatty. I do cook lots of vegetables too. But they’re not as much fun as this.

Take a couple of tablespoons of butter (margarine will not do) and toss it into a pyrex pan (or whatever) and put it in the oven at about 375F until just melted. No need to preheat, it’s just butter. Take it out of the oven before it burns, and add a bunch of maple syrup. (No, the real stuff – Aunt Jemima’s simply will not do in this instance.) I like to end up with roughly equal parts butter and maple syrup, but a 1:2 ratio either way works just fine as well.

Add a bunch of roughly chopped veggies – you can do it with just carrots, or a mix of carrots, onions, potatoes (I prefer baby potatoes because they require less chopping), turnips, parsnips, celery root, beets, and/or whatever other root vegetables you happen to have lying around. I don’t peel anything unless I absolutely have to because I find unpeeled veggies taste way better, and *bonus* they’re supposedly better for you too. Anyways, I end up with about 2-4 cups of roughly chopped stuff, all about the same size pieces.

Stir all that shit around in the pan until it’s well coated in butter and mapley goodness. If you have lots of veggies, you may need to add more butter and/or maple syrup. Add some coarse or kosher salt and lots of black pepper, and make sure everything is coated thoroughly. As my grandmother would say, “if you start adding too many spices like oregano you’ll end up with some kind of I-talian dish!” So keep it simple.

Stick the pan back into the oven and cook it for about 15 minutes before stirring around. Depending on how big your pieces are and how mushy you like your veggies, it may take up to 45 minutes to fully cook. A little overcooked is totally ok for this recipe, but undercooked is gross.

Bonus variation: use bacon fat instead of butter. I find this tastes a little bit too breakfasty for my tastes, but there are plenty of people who prefer this variation.

1. Cook the peas until they’re tender.
2. Drain the peas, reserving about 1 cup of the liquid.
3. Cut the garlic cloves in half, remove and discard the cores, and coarsely chop what’s left.
4. Throw garlic, olive oil, tahini, lemon juice, salt, and pepper into a food processor. Blend until smooth.
5. Add the drained peas; blend until smooth. Adjust the thickness by adding some of the reserved liquid.

Makes a whole damn lot of hummus (10 cups or so, I think).

Hummus pizza

We use store-bought pizza-crust-in-a-can, ’cause we’re lazy like that. Roll it out in a jelly roll pan or on a cookie sheet. Spread with hummus instead of tomato sauce. Add cheese and whatever toppings you want. Make sure the cheese covers the hummus, or it’ll dry out in the oven. Bake according to the instructions on the pizza dough can. (First found this recipe when trying to figure out ways to use up a big damn bowl of hummus. Thought it sounded kind of odd. Read the comments on the recipe, most of which were along the lines of, “This recipe sounded strange, but we had a big damn bowl of hummus to use up, so we tried it and it was really good.” Decided to try it. It was really good.)

Since I’m already taking over the thread I might as well add a couple more recipes…

This is a pretty huge (restaurant size) recipe but it reduces down pretty well, and it’s a great party dish. The two recipes I included at the end are totally optional, but they are not terribly complicated (apart from finding the ingredients) and make the dish a hell of a lot better.

add 1 L water
1 small can of tomato paste
4 tbsp curry paste (we made our own at the restaurant and I included the recipe below, but you can use storebought stuff too I’m sure)
4 tbsp gloria/ajvar vegetable spread
3 bay leaves
1 tbsp ground black pepper
juice of 1 lemon

Add chickpeas and cook until thickened. Cool and pulse in small batches in a food processor. Should still be quite chunky. This tastes even better after it’s been in the fridge for a day or two.

Serve with warm, grilled naan bread (you can buy plain naan bread already made at many grocery stores and “ethnic” stores, just grill it on a panini grill or in a pan to warm it up a bit) brushed with garlic oil/butter and sprinkled lightly with zahtar spice. Cut into triangles or slices to serve.

I think he’s a perfectly good singer, for what my opinion is worth, but he takes a LOT of internet crap for being nowhere near as good (or experienced, or ridiculously well-trained) as most of the others, which translates to “OMG HE CAN’T FUCKING SING WHY DID THEY HIRE HIM?” Because, you know, it’s the internet. I’d give my left tit to sing as well as he does, though.

Start with the butter. Add the sugar. Then the egg and flavoring. Flour, baking soda and salt (if using). Big cookies will need about 13 minutes to cook. Small cookies about 9. They will look kinda wet on top when you take them out. Wet and puffy. In five minutes, they will look like cookies. Don’t worry.

Even a small group of nieces/nephews will polish these off before the adults decide to mosey on into the kitchen. And they smell heavenly while baking. It is a favorite, and everyone always asks for the recipe when I contribute it to bake sales or give it as a gift:

Heat the oil, garlic and bay leaf in a large pot over low to medium heat. Add the beans and toss to coat them in the oil. Add the oregano and the broth. Simmer this for at least 20 minutes (40 is better, but 20 will do if you’re hungry)

Remove the bay leaf, then mash the beans with a spoon or potato masher (or one of those wand blender smoothie-maker things, if you have fancy toys to play with). Add the parsley and lemon juice and simmer for a couple more minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Makes 2 servings if this is the main course.

* You MUST drain & rinse the beans, or you risk getting/giving horrible gas.

‘Tis the season for this, and it’s simple enough. I eat this about twice a week in spring, when asparagus is in season. It isn’t High Art Food, but it’s delicious.

Asparagus Parmesan Pasta

Ingredients:
1 lb. fresh asparagus (should be the tiny kind–smaller than your pinky finger or not more than 1/3″ diameter–1/2″ is acceptable if that’s all you’ve got, but smaller’s better)
4 tbsp. butter
some garlic (adjust to taste–I like 3-4 cloves but I am ridiculous and recognize this fact about myself)
dash lemon juice (a teaspoon or less)
salt and pepper to taste
6-8 oz. thin spaghetti, depending how hungry you are
Fresh parmesan to taste–I like 1/4c. to 1/2 c. but your tastes may vary.

Break the woody ends (ha. ha. Okay, sorry, it’s Friday evening, I’m allowed to be juvenile) off the asparagus. Cut the remaining spears into 1″ to 1.5″ pieces. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat–I recommend a heavy 12″ nonstick skillet. When the butter is melted, add the asparagus. Cook them 1-2 minutes, then add the garlic and a bit of salt and pepper. Cook 3-4 minutes or until the asparagus is tender-crisp and the garlic has softened. Add the splash of lemon juice.

Meanwhile, boil the pasta according to package directions, and drain.

Dump hot buttery lemon asparagus into the pasta. Add parmesan to taste. Toss it all together. Add more of whatever there needs to be more of. Put it on a plate or in a bowl and devour it with some fresh, hot Italian bread.

I got all excited about the “pot brownies” in that first post but then realized it was a different kind of pot.

I have a recipe blog where I put forth some of my stuff here: http://kelly.hogaboom.org/?s=&cat=192. The recipes I get requested most often are my homemade pita, fried tofu, hamburger buns, hard-boiled eggs (peels perfectly every time, the yolk is not chalky but tender and just-right), tamales, naan, pizza dough and pizza sauce.

saute corn kernels until slightly browned. add garlic and saute briefly, then add tomatoes. cook for a few minutes, then add balsamic vinegar and cook it down until it forms a glaze. it’s tasty warm or cold.

(It’s good amped up with diced chicken for extra protein, too – and not bad made with vegetarian broth either, though I can’t vouch for its healing effects with less protein.)

Put the rice and thyme in the broth and cook for 40 minutes or so (bring to boil, turn down to simmer).

Whip the egg yolks until they go pale; add the lemon juice to them slowly, while stirring.

Chop up a few large handfuls of the parsley & set aside.

Add spoonfuls of the hot broth to the egg mixture, while stirring (so you raise the temperature of the eggs slowly enough not to separate them). When the egg mixture is steaming, add it into the broth-pot and stir for a few minutes (thickens up slightly, not much but keep it stirred so the egg mixture and the broth fully mix).

Garnish at the last minute with fistfuls of fresh parsley and as much black pepper as your lungs/sinuses need/can tolerate. If you’re not sick & eating it just because it’s yummy, go lighter on the pepper.

Mix all the cake stuff together really well and then poor into greased muffin tins /cupcake cups. Bake in a 350 degree oven till toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, 15-20 minutes depending on how awesome your oven is.

Let the cupcakes cool and frost with the buttercream or use more strawberry juice / less powdered sugar and butter, make a bunch of holes in the warm cake and use as a glaze.

HarrietJ, I rarely actually laugh out loud reading blogs, but your recipe did it! I would totally buy a cookbook called “Cook That Shit” or perhaps “Rice and Water, Gettin’ Freaky.” Love it!

Could pass on my awesome caramel brownie recipe (non-cooks are always fascinated that I made not only the brownies but the caramel layer from scratch) but it’s actually from Mrs. Fields’ cookie book, so I can’t claim to have made it up. Bonus points if you “adapt” it by adding some pecans or walnuts though. Delish!

This serves two, is really quick to make but is kind of impressive in spite of its boring ingredients. It’s easy to double.

Cut one boneless chicken breast into cubes about the size of dice. Cook them in a big skillet (mine’s an 8″) with olive oil in the bottom, maybe half a centemetre deep. Add five or six cloves of garlic, cut thin, as you go. Start water boiling for pasta. When the chicken is starting to get browned, add three or four tablespoons each of dried basil and dried oregano. If you want mushrooms in it, add them now. Slice one tomato into cubes. Don’t bother de-seeding it. Slice half a green bell pepper (or some of a green one and some of a yellow one) lengthwise so you get big thin C-shaped slices, very pretty. Asparagus is also good. Maybe some black olives if you have them around and feel like it. Cook pasta according to instructions on the box. When it is two minutes or so from being done, dump the vegetables in with the chicken, give it a stir and cover it while the pasta cooks the rest of the way. When the pasta’s right, the veggies should be hot but still crisp and have shed just enough water (and watery tomato-seed goop) to mix with the olive oil and be sauce enough to coat the noodles. Remember to pour every scrap of liquid out of the pan onto the noodles. Give the diners a bowl of grated parmesean or similar hard nutty cheese to spoon on in large amounts and stir in.

Here is the ancestral JM family recipe for rhubarb muffins. I didn’t make it up, but you might not have it yet. I leave out the nuts, make half again the streusel topping, and bake it in a 9×13 pan for 45ish minutes. 2 cups is the bare minimum of rhubarb you can get away with — edge it toward 3 cups.

The Americanized kheer recipe I bragged about in the other thread is basically Alton Brown’s recipe with the following changes:
– Leave out the raisins and throw in a big handful of shredded coconut.
– 1/4 tsp of cardamom is not very much. Use more.
– Cardamom and vanilla are the best of friends. When you stir in the nuts and coconut, also throw 1-3 tsp of vanilla extract.

The Gentleman Associate always jokes that I need a frying-pan signal light, a la Batman, because I always make WAY TOO MUCH food. Here’s an easy vegan main dish that I’m probably going to do tonight, and an appetizer that my family makes that is universally requested at any regular gathering of People That Know Us, I think originally adapted from Recipes for a Small Planet? My cooking methods are similar to Harriet J’s, so sorry if this is difficult to execute.

Quick Chickpea Stew
Sautee a chopped onion in some olive oil. Throw a crushed/minced garlic clove in there if you’re a kinky garlic freak, but do it after the onion is already all carmelized and brown, otherwise burned garlic sadness occurs

chop some kale (or chard, or other bitter greens, or even spinach if you don’t like bitter, but srsly, KALE!) and toss it in after the onion has browned. Salt a bit. Add some red pepper if you like the heat.

once the kale is good and wilted, open a can of whole tomatoes in sauce, dump the sauce in, chop the tomatoes roughly and dump them in as well. If you’ve got other good looking herbal biz like thyme or oregano or basil or parsley that wants in on the action, get it in there too.

open, drain, and rinse a can of chickpeas. dump in and stir.

simmer until the tomatoes stop tasting raw, or to your desired degree of soupiness. serve by itself or over brown rice, or whatever.

aaaaand…

Mushrooms on Toast, beloved by everyone

Melt a good chunk of butter (2-3T?) in a big saucepan and chop up an onion and sautee

Chop a shitload of mushrooms into slices, do way more than you think you’ll need. Those fuckers cook down like nobody’s business. Like, most of a plastic produce bag of mushrooms. My mom chops ’em by hand, but I use one of those egg slicers, cuz really, why do it by hand when there’s a handy gadget? Toss them in and sautee with the onions. You want these to cook down a lot. Most recipe books are all, “Sautee for 7-8 minutes”. Bullshit. You want these puppies to sweat. There will be a very liquid-y stage, and then they will eventually, after 15-20 minutes, get back to a stage where you can see them frying again, rather than stewing in their own liquid. You want to be able to see the butter on them. You want them to be dark brown and chewy nuggets of deliciousness, not pale limp versions of their former selves.

While the sauteing is happening, pour around a cup of passable red wine into a small pot. A bottle that you’ve had open for a while is fine, but it shouldn’t be total vinegar. Hey, why not a glass for yourself, too?

dump some powdered ginger in there. Maybe at least a tsp? or according to your taste. Squirt in some ketchup, pour in some chunky salsa. I have salsa OPINIONS, and I use either Pace or La Victoria chunky HOT salsa, but you may have a favorite. The salsa + ketchup is supposed to equal 1/4 cup, but do I measure them? I do not. Adjust the ratio of salsa to ketchup according to your heat tolerance. simmer this mixture, with some more chopped onions in it if you like, until you’re ready.

Once the mushrooms are frying vs. wilting, pour in the wine mixture and simmer them together for a few minutes.

Make toast out of wheat bread. Something nutty and substantial is best. I like Orowheat’s Winter Wheat because it’s almost square, which makes pleasing triangles when sliced on the diagonal. Which you will do.

Dump a bunch of parmesean, like most of a tub, into the cheese mix. Actually, you should sprinkle this and stir, and sprinkle and stir, so you don’t end up with enormous melted lump of cheese that covers your spoon but does not play nicely with mushrooms. Do I ever remember this when I’m making this recipe? Since I’m almost always half an hour late to a party, no, I do not. Get the cheese all melty and spread through the mushrooms–it helps to hold everything together. Spoon the mushroom mixture onto the toast triangles, slap em on a plate, and put your party dress on!

2. In a large bowl, cream together the peanut butter, butter, white sugar and brown sugar. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; stir into the peanut butter mixture. Add peanut butter chips and mix well. Tablespoon dough into balls and place them 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets. Dip a fork into water, then flour, and criss-cross each cookie to flatten slightly (cookies will not flatten on their own while baking!).

3. Bake for 9-12 minutes in the preheated oven, until just lightly browned. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Btw, I dip the fork into flour *each* time before criss-crossing a cookie so the dough doesn’t stick to it. And better to have them slightly undercooked than overcooked, because they end up solidifying later anyway. I found this recipe online and then tweeked it a couple of times and I’d say it turned out pretty good! Enjoy :)

You get yourself some pita. You put the pita on a baking sheet. You lightly brush the pita with olive oil. You do not have a brush, because seriously, who has that? So actually you kind of drop a load of olive oil on your pita and mop it up with the other pita. Same thing.

On top of mopped pitas, you put:

Sliced green, red, and yellow peppers (really you just need green, but the rest are so pretty)
Little slices of onion
Cherry tomatoes (so they do the molten POP in your mouth, I love that shit)
Handful of mushrooms
Little bit of oregano
Any other leftover veggies you’ve got creating Doozer structures in your fridge
A shit ton of feta

Put that shit in the oven. I dunno. Like 400 or so. About half an hour. If you keep standing by the oven checking it, it’s going to take longer. If you preheated, it probably doesn’t take as long. I do not preheat and I am constantly checking, so sometimes I am old when it is done.

PITA PIZZAS!

Note of caution: Depending on what kind of veggies you put on the pita pizza, a lot of water content may have gotten released during cooking. Avoid the temptation to pick up your pita pizza, just barely cooled, and fold it into a burrito like shape. You will get a hot mess of olive oil and tomato juice and mushroom water burning third-degree scalds down your wrist.

Okay. Scambled eggs. Get a heavy saucepan and put some butter in it, a couple of tablespoons. I normally add some paella seasoning, or you could add some saffron or tumeric powder, for a bright yellow colour and some spice. Meanwhile, lightly scramble about six eggs (two or three eggs per person is the rule) with a fork, add pepper and either a little water or, much better, some orange juice. When the butter’s melted, turn the heat way down and add the eggs. Cook them very gently, stirring occassionally. You don’t want them to curdle and harden – scrambled eggs should be more like custard. Once they get to the point where they are *almost* ready, add some sour cream (or heavy cream with a fat content higher than thirty percent; lower than that and you risk curdling), add parsley, salt and serve on toast.

Or here’s something simpler. Cook a steak, something thick. Heat a saucepan and add some heavy cream (again it needs to be thirty percent fat or higher) and *lots* of pepper. Once it starts to bubble away, crumble in a handful of blue cheese. The sauce will thicken itself. You could add some herbs, maybe chives or parsley. Then pour it on the steak, or on the plate under the steak if you’re wanky.

I just tried karaoke at a place in PDX called Voicebox, which has individual rooms for 4 people and up. To me, that’s the only way to do it. Another thing about karaoke that I didn’t realize: Their microphones SUCK, and if the volume on the music is all the way up, I can’t hear myself. I can actually sing halfway decently most of the time, and I sounded just horrible, because I was having serious problems combining the necessary pitch and volume. Everyone in our room sounded pretty bad, even the people who normally weren’t bad singers. Just FYI. But it was fun anyway, even sounding terrible, since I only had to sound terrible around people I already knew.

OK, a recipe. Want to make your own ravioli? Don’t have one of those fangly-jangly pasta machines? No problem! All you need is a cheap-ass pizza and pasta cutter like you can buy in the dollar store, plus a rolling pin and a cutting board. Your pasta consists of 3 eggs plus 1-1/2 cups of flour (I use all-purpose; you don’t have to). That’s all. Just put the flour in a bowl, make a little divot in the middle big enough to put the eggs in, start beating the eggs and incorporating more flour until it’s mixed well. Then you want to knead it until it’s smooth and elastic. You can add a little more flour if you want to, or add a little water if it’s too dry. You want it to stick to itself, but not to you (so it won’t stick to your rolling pin).

Filling? I know two different kinds of cheesatarian filling: spinach/ricotta and butternut squash/goat cheese. (I’ve also used other winter squashes like delicata, which are pretty tasty too.) For me, it’s tricky to get the amount of filling right; I always seem to have some left over.

But on spinach/ricotta, I’d try 8 ounces of ricotta and 6 ounces of spinach. If you use frozen spinach, all you have to do is defrost it; if you’re using fresh, nuke it for about 2 minutes or steam it for 5, let it cool off. (And of course, make sure the fresh spinach is triple-washed; most spinach these days is washed pretty well, but you might want to put it through a change or two of water just in case.) Then squeeze out as much water as you can (regardless of your prep method), and chop it up somewhere between coarse and fine. You can throw in an egg if you like, and if you like garlic, chop it up and put in a clove or two, or use granulated if you’re feeling lazy. It will work fine. Then salt, pepper, a pinch of allspice or nutmeg.

On squash, you can either buy it frozen and fully cooked, or you can slice and bake it yourself. Thirty minutes in the oven, face down on foil, let it cool off and scoop out the seeds. (Putting the raw squash in the microwave for 3 to 5 minutes, depending on the size of the squash, will make it easier to cut. Puncture it full of knife holes first.) But you’ll want your net to be about a cupful. Then 4 ounces of a soft goat cheese like bucheron or cano de cabra (take off the rind); they’re about the same, you can get whichever one is cheaper. You can also use a chevre-style cheese, if you can’t find the bucheron or cano. Then, likewise on the seasonings. (If I make this kind, I don’t mind leftover filling, because it makes a great cracker spread.)

Now, the technique. Halve your dough, and flour your cutting board. Roll out the pasta dough as thin as you can get it, about 1/8″. Slice it into sections about 3″ wide; if you have extra, put it aside. Then do likewise with the other half of the dough. Use the leftovers to knead together and make an extra strip. Put teaspoons of filling on half of your sections, about 2″ apart, then put a strip of dough on top and press around the filling. You can stretch the top of the dough or mash down the bottom of it to get it to match, if you have to. Just make sure the edges hold together. Now use your pizza and pasta cutter on the serrated side to cut them. (If you have edges that refuse to adhere to each other, you can cheat a little and roll them together, inwards towards your filling, after you cut them.) If you have a strip of leftovers, you can make a ravioli or two out of that, too.

Then you’ll want to dry them 15 minutes on each side before cooking them. About 10 minutes in boiling water with a little oil (make sure they don’t stick to the bottom of the pan!). Serve with sauce of your choice. (I usually just make something simple with crushed tomatoes — Escalon 6-in-1 are my favorite), and a little olive oil and garlic and basil if I have it. Butter-sage sauce is pretty good too. Last time I made it, it yielded about 20 good-sized raviolis.

OK, fried rice. Fried rice in some form or another is pretty much the easiest shit in the whole world and an excellent way to use up leftovers, plus one of the few things easy enough to make that I don’t mind doing it for breakfast, but it has come to my attention that more people need to know how to make really awesome, Taiwanese-American-partner-approved fried rice. SO: let’s make some goddamn tasty fried rice, as partially cribbed off aforementioned partner’s grandma’s housekeeper, who is a Filipino lady living in Hong Kong if you like keeping track of things like that.

Equipment:
A wok
A wooden paddle, or whatever the hell hand-extender you usually use

Ingredients:
Cold old rice, as much as you need (but not so much that you won’t be able to toss it around in the wok) — better if you stick it in the fridge overnight so it’s all nasty and stiff
Neutral veggie oil, e.g. peanut/soy/canola, plus toasted sesame oil if you like it
Shitloads of garlic sliced up, or, failing that, diced onion
Some random fresh veggies and shit cut into little cubes (1cm is about right): carrots, zucchini, broccoli stems, mushrooms, peas, kimchi, ham…basically stuff that won’t fall apart too hard if you stir it vigorously, so probably not fish
Any leftover pre-cooked junk you want to use up too, chopped to the same size — preferably Asian or else not strongly flavoured, so it doesn’t taste too weird, I wouldn’t add fucking fajitas or anything, but suit yourself
Tasty sauces if you want: oyster sauce, soy sauce, fish sauce, kimchi juice, a couple of spoonfuls of red curry from the bottom of your Thai takeout last night, the liquid left over when you cook bivalves or greens, whatever — again, anything that won’t fuck up the flavour balance too badly, but if you feel like dumping in some marinara it’s your own damn breakfast
Eggs, good ones if possible (even the cheap shitty eggs in China are better than most of ours, I think)
Salt and pepper

Prep all the stuff. The key here, as often with Chinese cooking, is to have all the bits the same size. You want 1-2 cloves of garlic and about 1/4 cup of other goodies per cup of rice, and allow 2 cups of rice and 1/2 to 1 egg per person.

Heat up the wok on high heat and put a few glugs of oil in there, enough that the veggies will fry instead of steaming. Hell, add a little more, oil’s good for you. Put all the raw cubed junk in there, garlic first, add some salt, and fry the shit out of it. When the garlic’s brown, you’re done. Crack your eggs in there, scramble them around a bit, and let them cook in shreds. When the egg’s done, add the leftovers. You can also add sauces now, or wait until just at the end; if you add them in between it gets hella nasty and mushy. Kick them around until everything’s well mixed and heated, and largely evaporated so it’s all separate.
Then break up the clumps of rice and stick it in the pan. Add more oil if you think you need to — some people like it oily, some less so, and hell if I know how much you put in in the first place. I’d put in a squirt of sesame oil though, in any case, because I happen to fucking love toasted sesame oil. As the rice fries it will break up; your goal here is to make sure the grains all separate, so it goes from sticky steamed rice to loose fried rice. Now you just keep kicking the rice around with your paddle, breaking the clumps and keeping the bottom from burning, until it gets to the right consistency — this can take a while, and while you’re waiting go ahead and salt and pepper it to keep yourself busy, though you should watch out on the salt if you’re adding other salty shit.

Once the rice is all separate, you can once again add liquid safely if you feel like it, then evaporate it off so it’s all over the grains. Dick around with the seasonings and serve, with a pot of tea and possibly ketchup and/or chilli sauce. Make your partner do the dishes, ’cause shit, man, you just made breakfast.

Here’s pretty fucking quick & easy snacky/appetizery thing. I served it at a meeting I hosted recently and it was hoovered up with many moans of approval. Would also be nice if you need something to go with a glass of wine:

Prep a batch of biscuit dough, or hell, use the doughboy stuff in the tube. Grease a pan—I used a 7×11” “biscuit pan”, but a 9×9” would probably do. Spoon or pat the biscuit dough into the pan and spread it out so it fills the pan. You may need to flour your hand if the dough is sticky. Spread with a thin layer of roasted onion-garlic jam (comes in a jar) and top with gorgonzola crumbles and/or cheddar. I was worried that some of my guests might not like blue cheese, so I made half with gorgonzola and half with cheddar. Bake at 400F for 20-30 minutes, until the bottom is brown (stick a spatula under there and take a look) and the cheese is bubbling. Let cool for a few minutes, cut into squares, and serve.

I found the onion-garlic jam a little too sweet, so next time I am going to try a layer of caramelized onions mixed with a little balsamic vinegar. I’m thinking pear or apple chutney would also be really good, especially with the gorgonzola.

It’s not so much a “recipe,” but the lasagna I grew up with bears only the faintest resemblance to the Italian kind: layer cooked extra-wide egg noodles, the hearty (generally meat-based, in my family) tomato sauce of your choice, and slices of monterey jack cheese in a baking pan (at least two repetitions); top the final layer of jack with a generous helping of fresh parmesan; bake at 350 for 20-ish minutes or until the cheese is melted and bubbly. In the unlikely event that you’ve got leftovers, it freezes well in foil-wrapped individual servings. :D

We had a neighbor when I was in grade school named Savina who made these for us and then laid the recipe on us. We used to beg my mom to make them. They are hugely easy, mostly because these kind of shells are so quick to fill.

INGREDIENTS – SHELLS:

4 eggs
1 1/2 c. water
1 TBSP. oil
1 cup flour

INSTRUCTIONS:

Whisk together liquid ingredients and add flour, whisk until there are no lumps.

A small (6″ or so) nonstick frying pan works best for this; I spritz it with Pam once but after the first one, the oil in the batter is enough to keep them from sticking. Put burner on just a little higher than medium heat and ladle a bit of batter into the pan and swirl it around. It should be enough to just coat the whole pan, not like a pancake quantity. Let it cook until the top looks completely dry, then invert the pan and pop it out on a cooling rack or plate. Repeat until all batter is used. This will make a stack of shells that is enough for a family dinner, if you are making them for a crowd you should double or triple it. (Tripling makes between 50-60)

Put a line of cheese in the middle of the circle and fold the sides over. Done! Place assembled manicotti in a baking dish layered with sauce, top with sauce and cheese, bake in a 350 degree oven approximately 35 minutes.

Any cheese mixture you are accustomed to making for lasagna, etc, works fine. Shells can be made days ahead and refrigerated; they can also be frozen. These manicotti are light and glorious.

Nikujaga (Japanese beef and potato stew) This is one of my favorite cold weather comfort dishes – recipe comes courtesy of a friend from Osaka, whose Mom taught him how to make it.

Ingredients

Beef stew meat, about a pound (can be any kind of beef that you’d normally use for stew but you want it cut into bite size chunks – traditionally these are quite big chunks, I tend to cut them smaller)
Potatoes, about a pound, chopped into large bite size pieces
Carrots, about a pound, peeled and chopped (*1)
Onions, one large, thinly sliced
Garlic, a few cloves
Soy sauce
Sake (any you can get, doesn’t have to be fancy – it’s a good way to use up leftovers if you have them)
Oil for cooking (I use olive oil, but whatever you prefer would be fine)
Sesame oil (*2)
Brown sugar, 3 tablespoons or mirin, 3 tablespoons (*3)
Beef stock

Thinly slice onions and fry slowly in oil (*4), making sure not to burn them. Add garlic, fry a minute or so. Add beef, cook till just barely seared. Add 1-3 cups each soy sauce and sake (this is totally to taste depending on how strong you want the gravy to be). Add beef stock (one of the large cartons you can get in stores is about the right amount), simmer for about an hour depending on type of beef and size you cut it to. Add chopped carrots and chopped potatoes. Cover and simmer until vegetables are tender. Serve over steamed rice.

Notes
*1 The traditional recipe would only use one or two average sized carrots, but I tend to add more because I love carrots. Note though that if you add a lot of carrots you should omit some or all of the sugar/mirin or it will be too sweet.
*2 This is a regional/individual family thing, can be omitted if you don’t like sesame oil
*3 See note about carrots. This dish is meant to be a little sweet, but not sugary sweet like sukiyaki. Adjust to taste, but when I make it with lots of carrots I don’t add any sugar or mirin at all.
*4 Add sesame oil here if you’re using it

This recipe can be doubled, tripled etc to make vast quantities if you have a big enough pot. Picky kids LOVE this dish, so it’s good for family gatherings. It seems to cook best in a thick Le Creuset style pot. It freezes really well.

Chuck some pasta in soome boiling water. Salted if that’s your thing (I never use salt. Like, ever. So most of my recipes may or may not need salt depending on your tasebuds.)

Mushrooms
tuna
cheese
sweetcorn
peppers
anything else you have lying around that you want with pasta.

Drain the tuna, dump in a bowl. Chop and mix all of the above in a bowl. Drizzle with olive oil for extra nommable-ness

Once pasta is cooked, drain, return to pan. Dump stuff in the bowl into the pan. Return the pan to the heat briefly to make the cheese all melty.

Salsa-type thing. I made this for an inproptu BBQ, making it up as I went along. It worked quite well and goes down a treat. Not really a salsa. Could be used for lots of other things.

1 tin of mixed pulses (The ones I buy include butter beans and lentils and kidney bean and others)
A fuckton of tomato paste
A red onion, chopped
half a pepper (whichever colour you have lying around. Green works well with the other colours)
Oil

Fry the onions in a frying pan. Add pepper and beans. Mix and cook for a bit. Cover in the afore-mentioned fuckton of paste (I use 3/4 to a whole tube). Cook some more til it’s warm and nommable. Sure on burgers or with other stuff. Or just eat it out of a bowl.

Cookbooks should involve more profanity. It would make my life better.

I mentioned fish pie on the last thread, but the recipie kinda changes every time I make it (depending on what fish and/or veg I have in the house) – it’s basically:

Put your fish (Salmon, prawns, cod, haddock, etc or any combination thereof) in a pyrex dish, with a little bit of milk in the bottom. Cover in clingfilm (plastic wrap?) and cook in the microwave until the fish is flakey and cooked. Flake it into the bottom of a large oven-proof dish.

Peel, cook and then mash some potatoes, with oodles of butter and a splash of milk.

Make a roux (white sauce) (basically, a large splash of olive oil, heat it till it’s really hot, add some flour and stir until it makes a paste, then add milk till it gets to about the consistency of double cream. It takes a bit of practice to get right and you have to stir like a mad thing to get it not lumpy, but it’s worth the effort. Promise.)

Add some peas and sweetcorn (off the cob) to the roux. Along with a good heap of chopped parsley (fresh or dried, either’s fine).

Pour the roux over the fish, then layer the mashed potato over that. Make pretty patterns in the potato with the back of a fork, then stick the lot in the oven at about 180 degrees C for a good half-hour.

Take out of the oven, serve, eat, enjoy :)

Also, a bonus recipie! Because you are all awesome Shapelings!

This one is for Celery soup. It sounds odd – and I’ve never had anyone make it for me except my Mum, so it is my Number One comfort food, and the best thing in the world if you’re ill (especially with sore throats).

Chop the onion and fry it in a large saucepan or casserole pan. [tip: if it’s just after Christmas, or if I’ve managed to save some, this works amazingly if you fry the onions in goose fat (which also works great for roast potatoes). About a tablespoon full of it. Of course, if you’re veggie or vegan, then olive oil/ vegetable oil works just as well.]

Add the chopped, peeled potato and chopped celery. Stir until they’re coated in the oil/ goose fat, then cover the lot with chicken or vegetable stock.

Bring to the boil, then cover and let simmer for about half an hour.

Pour the soup into a blender, and blend thoroughly (you may need to do it in batches, depending on the size of your blender). I have a hand-held blender, and if you’ve got one of those, they are probably the best option here.

Strain the soup through a sieve, using the back of a ladle to help it along a bit if necesary (and it should be nice and gloopy, so you probably will need to help it through).

And there you go! Soup! Serve with a nice bit of crusty bread, and enjoy. :)

Another top tip: this also freezes well. If you let it cool, then put it in one of those little plastic tupperware boxes, then in the freezer, and when you’re ill and just don’t feel like cooking, all you have to do is take one of these out, defrost it in either the microwave or in a pan on the stove, and you have instant (ish) feel-better soup :)

I can’t cook at all, but I’m also very behind the idea of a very sweary cookbook.
Actually, I can sort of make brownies….maybe I could include a secret ingredient in them for people to guess, so I could call the recipe,

“Paintmonkey’s What the Fuck is that Brownies.”

A sweary cookbook would work. Imagine how many pissed off people would feel cheered making sweary sounding food. Talk about livening up a dull day. I’m thinking along the lines of
“Auntie Betty’s Mofo and Cranberry Slice.”

Heat oil. Add asparagus and cook for a minute or two. Add chicken and ginger, cook till chicken changes color. Add garlic and black bean sauce. Cook a minute or so. Add soy sauce, rice wine, and rice vinegar to taste (about equal quantities of all, more of the vinegar if you like vinegary dishes), stir to combine. Add chicken stock. Stir and let cook till well blended (not very long, you don’t want to overcook the asparagus). Serve over rice. With a glass of water and some tea too – black bean sauce is salty as hell. But tasty!

This is my go-to dish when I’m in the mood for a rich-tasting plate of pasta, and it goes great with a chilled Sauvignon Blanc. Easy and fast enough to make on a weeknight, too. (Just pay attention to the part where it says “stir constantly,” because otherwise your milk mixture will stick to the pot.) :)

I am a bit jealous of you all and your wonderful receipes here, not because I can’t cook, I get by (and I make a lovely egg fried rice) but because I am currently relying on a microwave and toaster to cook my food.

Still I am lucky that my sister, who lives close by, loves to cook and treats me to some amazing slow cooked casseroles a few times a week.

I am taking her some of these receipes and I might even have a go myself, Jennys’ cheese scones will be first because cheese scones straight from the oven spread with butter are one of my favourite things in the world.

I’ve been thinking a bit about the need for a food forum that doesn’t allow health talk, in the same way that the fatosphere generally doesn’t allow diet talk.

If you want cookbooks with swearing, you should be able to find some of Trader Vic’s old cookbooks, particularly the Helluva Man’s Cookbook. He actually wrote really fucking well, just like if Ernest Hemingway wrote cook books, and there’s genius in every paragraph. I’ve read the classics, and page for page, there as much wisdom in Trader Vic as there is in Brillat-Savarin.

Marinate the chicken breasts in barbecue sauce or, like, one of those Lawry marinades for as long or as short a time as you please. Cube them, and then basically mix the tater tots, mushroom soup, sour cream, and some shredded cheddar cheese together and chuck it into a casserole dish (you’d probably want to use a fairly big one – 9 X 13 or so, because shit, it’s a lot of tots and meat coming at you). Top it with more cheese because, my god, cheese.

Bake for about 35-45 minutes in a 350 – 375 degree oven or until the chicken is cooked. It’s also very yummy without the chicken. I’m sure it would work with other meats as well. You could put bacon in it if you were a mind to.

Make them. Your gall bladder may hate you, but the oh-hell-delicious-yet-so-gastronomically-confusing AWESOME will be worth it.

The blog in the hyperlinked namey-name has several of my recipes, mostly of the ‘this is how to cook pretty decent food pretty cheaply’ variety, since I live on a uni-student budget and somehow NONE of my peers know how to cook. Anyway, I happened on this recipe at Christmastime several years ago, and now spend summers (yay, Australia) making it for my mum. By hand, since her mixmaster is always broken. Every summer, I have a killer right arm.

Oven – preheat to 180°C, turn down to 120°C while baking. (Not fan-forced.)

Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Add the sugar, 1/3 at a time, fully incorporating so you end up with a thick, glossy meringue. Fold through the rosewater, vinegar and cornflour (I often sieve the cornflour, just to eliminate the chance of lumps, but it’s not usually a problem)

Line a few baking trays with baking paper (I use 2 layers, but that’s just paranoia). Make small discs of meringue (approx. 10cm in diameter and 4-5cm deep) and hollow the middle out a little, so each disk will bake into a ‘bowl’. Place in oven and reduce heat immediately; bake for 35-45 minutes. Turn the oven off and leave meringues inside to cool. The meringues should colour slightly, but not darken too much.

To serve, 2/3 fill each meringue with yoghurt (I use King Island Dairy ‘creamy indulgence’ yoghurt, either the plain or vanilla bean version. Any very thick or set yoghurt will do the job, but you’re better off not using a strong flavour, as the rosewater gives the meringue a very delicate flavour which matches the fruit perfectly). Distribute the berries between the individual meringue bowls, and serve. The amount of fruit called for is from the original recipe; I tend to use whatever is on hand. I’ve never actually used the red currants, as I tend to make this when there are home-grown raspberries, cherries, strawberries and jostaberries on hand, and I put on as much or as little fruit as I like.

This will make about a dozen servings.

The original recipe called for 3 large disks of meringue, to be spread with whipped cream and berries & stacked. This was excellent for the high-impact special dessert look thing, but really, really awkward (slicing, transportation, ugh). Also, that much cream can get a bit overwhelming, and if you use a -really- good yoghurt, it’s amazing. You really do want to keep to the minimal flavouring thing though, and make sure you use proper rosewater.

I am absolutely not a meringue expert, but I’m pretty sure this is supposed to be the chewy kind, and I have found that when I fluke it chewy, it generally works best. It’s pretty damn awesome however it turns out, though – plus, you end up with heaps of egg yolks to use up, which is the only excuse I need for brandy custard.

In a heavy pot with a lid heat olive oil to medium and add onion, cumin, chili powder and a big pinch of salt and pepper. Cook onion, stirring regularly until it starts to soften. Add chicken, salsa and chicken stock and bring to a simmer. Cover and cook for 15-20 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.

Remove chicken from pot and set aside. While chicken cools bring the sauce to a simmer, uncovered and reduce by half. When the chicken is cool enough shred it with two forks. Stir chicken back into sauce and reduce heat to low. Add lime juice. Taste and adjust for seasoning.

Put chicken in a baking pan or casserole, sprinkle liberally with soy sauce, hot sauce, and garlic powder. We like it swimming. You can let it marinate for a bit or throw it straight into a 350 degree oven for about an hour.

Put chicken or meat in a casserole dish. Sprinkle with pepper and garlic powder. Dump packet over meat, distributing evenly. Spread mushroom soup on top. Cover with foil, bake at 350 for an hour, take off foil, bake another 20-30 minutes. Serve over hot rice and add in a big pile of veggies.

Artichokes

Look for heavy feeling artichokes with the leaves still closed pretty tightly. Rinse them off, trim the stem if you want, I usually trim the bottom 1/4 inch off, cut off the stem, and cook it alongside of the artichoke. Put it in a pot and cover with water. Add some olive oil, lemon slices, or garlic cloves, if you want. Bring to a boil and let it go for 30 minutes. Take a fork or a spoon and try to push off one of the bottom leaves. If it’s still hard to remove, let it boil for another 10-15 minutes. When it’s done, drain off all the water and get yourself something to dip the leaves in. I like mayo, my best friend likes butter. Pull off the leaves and dip the end that was close to the stem in whatever and scrape the flesh off with your teeth. Repeat until the leaves are very thin. Pull the rest of them off – you’ll see something that looks like hair. Pull that out or scrape it off with a spoon. What you have left is the heart – and the stem. Break that into chunks, dip in sauce, and consume whole. Sigh contentedly.

Now to the cooking!
Put the dashi stock, soy sauce, mirin, and sugar in a small pot and heat to a simmer. Poach the chicken in this until done. Bring stock and chicken to a boil. Beat the egg, add to the pot and put on the lid. Wait one minute then take off heat and let it hang our for another minute or two then put over your cup of rice.

This makes the best breakfast evar!

Also, if you guys like Japanese cooking and cute things check out JustBento.com.
The author of the site does talk diet and calorie counting, but I have never used any Sanity Watchers points here. It honestly is about tasty, nutritious, and well presented food. But if any calorie counting and such is triggering I just wanted to warn you all.

In a bowl, mix all ingredients thoroughly with a fork. Drizzle over steamed broccoli, toss to coat. Enjoy!

Lisa’s Vegetarian(/Vegan) Chili
(To make this as a vegan chili, make sure you get vegan vegi-patties, or omit them and don’t use cheese or sour cream. You could also add or substitute just about any other kind of beans that you like, such as pinto beans, or great northern beans)
– 3 cans (all cans are 14 oz.) kidney beans
– 2 cans black beans
– 1 can garbanzo beans (chick peas)
– 2 cans corn (or use frozen)
– 2 cans whole tomatoes (chop them in quarters before adding to chili)
– 1 large yellow onion
– 3 cloves garlic
– 2 bell peppers (any colors you want, I like using one red and one yellow for color)
– 1 package (4 patties) boca burger or other vegi-patty
– 1 T butter or cooking oil
– 1 or 2 bay leaves
– cayenne pepper, chili pepper, black pepper

Dice onion and garlic. In a large stew pot, sautée onion and garlic in butter or oil until soft. Drain beans and corn, and add to pot. Cut whole tomatoes into quarters, add tomatoes and juice from tomato cans to pot. Dice bell peppers and vegi-patties and add to pot. Add bay leaves, spice to taste with cayenne pepper, chili pepper, and black pepper. Simmer on low to medium heat for at least an hour (or put everything in a crock pot on low heat overnight). Serve hot with grated cheddar cheese and sour cream if desired. Makes about 8-10 servings.

If you are juicing the lemons or limes yourself, do that first, so you know how much juice you’ll have.

So, put the sugar and salt in your pitcher. Then heat part of the water and pour that in, too. Stir, so that the hot water dissolves the sugar and salt. Then add the juice and stir. Add the rest of the water and stir again. Give it a good stir and stick it in the fridge to cool.

(This used to require basically no actual measuring, but for some reason lately I can never find the little 10-oz. bricks of frozen broccoli or the 8-oz. mini-jars of Cheez Whiz, so I have to buy bigger versions and actually put in EFFORT. Boo.)

cook the corn in the reserved fat.
Mix that shit up, in the bacon pan.

Serve with boiled meat and potatoes or frybread.

Frybread:

Make a southern-biscuit recipe, any kind you like.
Instead of baking biscuits, take biscuit-sized lumps of dough and flatten them. Poke a hole in the center of the dough. Fry the dough in 1 in. of hot corn oil, or lard. Serve with honey. Or taco fillings for Indian tacos.

I come bearing two recipes, 1 sweet, 1 savoury. Be aware that I put sweet curry powder in fucking EVERYTHING (my kitchen is faintly yellow by now) so if you dislike curry, mosey on along. Okay, so the cookies don’t actually have curry in them but given that I am somewhat lacksidaisical about dishwashing, they might as well have.

Mushroomy spinachy stuff
1) PREP STUFF Chop some shallots and garlic really small. 1 shallot, 1 clove of garlic if you’re reg’lar, 3 or 4 if you’re me and like to repel vampires with every exhale; slice some shiitake mushrooms or use the baby ones whole; shred some adult spinach (we at the Annepersand abode do not believe in the murder of baby spinach); make some rosemary tiny

2) Saute the shallots and garlic in either grapeseed or olive oil. I like grapeseed cause it has no flavor and sometimes you get sick of olive oil

3) Throw in the mushrooms, let them soak up the oil and cook for a bit. Add curry, rosemary, other deliciousness. Add a generous swig of cooking wine. Take one yourself. Add some vegetable or chicken stock, let simmer down for a long time

4) After the mushrooms are well soft and delicious, throw in the spinach right on top and let it wilt down.

5) Eat with any grain or whatever that you find delicious. I do bulgur wheat sometimes, sometimes quinoa because I am a goddamn hippie.

Chocolate chip cookies so easy and delicious you can make them even while extremely drunk

3) Add in 2 cups of the best chocolate chips you have. The better the more tasty these cookies will be.

4) Make big-ass balls of dough and cook them at 350 degrees F for about 10-12 minutes until the tops begin to crack a tiny bit. Let them cool/finish cooking enough to rip them off the (greased) baking sheet.

Cookbooks are my crack but I usually don’t have the patience to actually use them.

Kate, my husband has a beautiful voice. He has had no vocal training, but would be even better if he took some lessons. I go with him occasionally to hear him sing karaoke. (He goes one or two nights a week.) I love listening to him and to the other good singers, but yeah. I really don’t enjoy listening to bad singers (of which I am one, BTW).

It’s bad enough that I am stuck in a stinky bar (I neither smoke nor drink, so bars hold no appeal for me), but to have to endure the half hour of (mostly) bad singers between the times my husband sings? In an environment where it’s too loud to carry on a conversation? Not my thing.

PS I am told it is rude to take a book to a bar.

PPS For Christmas, I gave him four coupons promising I’d go out with him and stay out as late as he wanted. He promised I would not have to go with him to his parents’ all year.

Cut a bunch of jalapenos in half lengthwise. Do not cut off the stem. You need a little boat to hold in the cream cheese and keep it from dripping out of the jalapeno and burning onto the pan. We don’t want to waste cream cheese, do we?

Scrape the seeds out of the pepper. Then fill it with cream cheese. We use the reduced fat (but not the no-fat – that is just disgusting) version.

Then you can grill them or smoke them or bake them. Smoking is the best, followed by grilling, but they’re not too shabby in the oven, either. Maybe 300-350 for an hour? I can’t remember. Until they’re done, which is when the bacon is cooked and the pepper is soft.

These are so awesomely deliciously good that they could probably make criminals confess.

Yay recipe thread! My first offering is apparently a family recipe that my mom made for the first time (in my memory) last night. I wish she had rediscovered this one years ago!

Aunt Marion’s Lemon Barbecue

Lemon juice
Sugar
Olive oil
Lots and lots of Tabasco

Mix ingredients, however much of each you want. Put your food of choice- we had chicken breasts- in a marinating dish and add marinade. Leave in fridge for several hours, the longer the better. Grill. Devour.

The next one is incredibly simple, but people always rave about it.

Garlic Bread

Loaf of fresh French bread, sliced
1/4 cup softened butter
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3-6 cloves of garlic, depending on how big and fresh they are. If you have big fat fresh cloves, use less; if you’re using up the little skinny cloves from the center of the garlic bulb, use more. When in doubt, MORE GARLIC.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees F, or broil setting. Make sure the oven rack is as high as you can get it. Whisk oil and softened butter together. Put the garlic through a garlic press and whisk into oil-butter mixture. Put the bread slices on a baking sheet and brush the mixture on. Broil until the edges of the bread are nicely golden brown. You must watch them like a hawk! Do not go do something else while they are cooking! The line between ‘nicely done’ and ‘nooo, I burned the bread!’ is very thin.

I make this next one at Christmas, although fudge is good any time of year. I started making it and giving boxes of fudge as gifts a few years ago… now I have several people who get incredibly disappointed if they don’t get fudge.

Line a loaf pan with plastic wrap, leaving a bit of air between plastic wrap and pan at the corners. You don’t want a tight seal here. Put aside.

Toast pecans with salt, however you prefer to do so. I toast mine in a skillet on the stove, but you can also toast them on a jelly roll sheet in the oven. They’re done when they start to smell good. Put pecans aside.

Pour chocolate chips and condensed milk into a medium saucepan and heat over medium-low heat. Stir constantly! Do not leave it alone or you will have burned chocolate, which is a sad thing. Once the mixture is smooth, take it off the heat and stir in vanilla and nuts. Pour into lined loaf pan and refrigerate until firm. Invert pan over cutting board. Usually the block of fudge pops right out. If the fudge doesn’t come out, whack the pan until it does. Sometimes you have to run some hot water over the bottom of the pan. Peel plastic wrap off the fudge and slice it up. Serve and bask in the compliments.

Variation: Peppermint Fudge. Crush candy canes or those little round peppermint hard candies (starlight mints, I think they’re called? The mints that so many restaurants have in bowls at the entrance) until you have 1 cup. Use in lieu of pecans.

Directions
Peel sweet potatoes and chop to bite-size chunks. Steam them. For a while. They should be slightly undercooked. Or overcooked. It’s not really a big deal.
In, like, a bowl, combine and whisk together the sweet ingredients, including the liquid. You can add a little flour if you want it to thicken in the bacon fat.
Put the shit from step 1 with the shit from step 2 into an oven-safe dish. Maybe like shake it up to coat it. If the sweet potatoes were undercooked, you can safely stir them without creating mush.
Place an even layer of bacon over the sweet potatoes.
Kind of push the bacon down between the sweet potatoes to create room for more bacon on top.
Place an even layer of bacon over the sweet potatoes.
You can maybe get some more bacon into the sides there, can’t you?
Well, damn, all that jostling of the yams just made room for more bacon, now didn’t it?
Place an even layer of bacon over the sweet potatoes.
Bake uncovered at 350 for 30 minutes or until the bacon looks fucking delicious. It might take longer, or maybe less time.

In the “Shit you can do with eggs” chapter of the Cursing Cookbook, this is a really good take on scrambled eggs, with lots of protein from the cottage cheese-egg mix. It looks really gross before you cook it, and if you ask people if they want cottage cheese and eggs scrambled together, you are likely to get a lukewarm to decidedly negative response, so usually I just ask if they want cottage eggs, and then tell them about the cottage cheese after they’re like, “what makes these so FUCKING GOOD?”

Fry up a couple T of butter, I tend to use salted cause I like it more, but it’s up to you. Eggs like gentle heat, so keep it lower than you would think to, medium low. Sizzle is bad with eggs.

Mix up some eggs and cottage cheese. I think I use around a cup of cottage cheese for 5 eggs. I use nonfat cottage cheese because that’s what we used to eat when I was a kid, and I’ve imprinted on it, but I’m sure you could use whatever variety you wanted to if you wanted a richer mouthfeel. Scramble that shit together until it looks like alien innards, and pour it in your pan.

Chop some green onions (around 4?) and throw them in the egg mix. Stir it pretty often, making sure to scrape the bottom bits up. Again, you want gentle cooking. This recipe is supposed to be good with all kinds of herbs, but I only ever use green onions, maybe some chives if there’s no green onions around. Grind some pepper in.

The eggs will never get totally hard, because of the cottage cheese. They stay all melty and soft, like Thomas Fucking Keller was in your kitchen making eggs for 3 hours or whatever he does. Srsly, that dude is ALL ABOUT the ridiculous cooktimes. Don’t be afraid if you see clear liquid seeping out of the curds–that’s the whey and it just gets stirred back in and absorbed. After 7-10 minutes of gentle cooking, your eggs should be about done. You want them in curds, but very soft curds. If you’re a precise person, around 160 on a thermometer. Do I ever measure this? No I do not.

Put that shit on some wheat toast and bask in the compliments.

For a few years, I’ve wanted to write a cookbook of easy and impressive college student food, and this was always recipe #1 in the book in my head.

This is my favorite recipe when small zucchini are first available. Per person, you will need

1/4 of a small onion
1 small (not much larger than your middle finger) zucchini
a few tablespoons of milk
a heaping tablespoon of ricotta (use the whole milk shit for fuck’s sake)
a healthy pinch of saffron powder (if you can’t find the powder use a pinch of threads in the whole dish)
3 oz rotini pasta

Boil water for pasta. When it comes to a boil add salt, dump in the pasta. Cook for appropriate number of minutes according to the box.
While the pasta cooks, heat some olive oil in a frying pan. Add finely minced onion and cook until onion starts to get soft.
Add finely diced zucchini (no need to peel). Sprinkle liberally with salt to draw out the water. Cook until water evaporates.
Add milk and saffron powder. Cook until it starts to thicken. Add a tablespoon of ricotta and stir until smooth.

First, you cook up an assload of bacon on a baking sheet in the over. Watch it carefully! You don’t want it crispy, just fully cooked through and still a bit soft. Take as many dates as you have slices of bacon and wrap the slice of bacon around the date, securing with a toothpick. Now stick the bacon wrapped dates back on a baking sheet (no, not the one covered in bacon fat – you should pour that shit out, and not down the sink!) and stick it back in the over for another few minutes, until the dates are nice and hot and the bacon is a little on the crispy side. You can also microwave this step.

Oh, and make sure you take the pit out of the date first. Nothing sadder than biting into a delicious, bacony date and chipping a tooth.

If you wanna get all fancy, you can totes stuff the dates with soft goat cheese, or even soft goat cheese with a little bit of fresh herbs mixed in (dill, thyme, whatever).

Bacon wrapped dates used to be called devils on horseback (oysters wrapped in bacon being angels on horseback). They’re good stuffed with mango chutney too. There used to be tons of popular recipes for social food – stuff that you made to take out with you and share with other people. But sharing food has become a suspicious activity, particularly when most social food contravened the daily rules of ‘good eating’ by being excessively yummy or entertaining in a frivolous way. Which really, really sucks.

Now people just buy stuff, because it’s easier and ‘safe’. But where’s the love if there’s been no care or effort involved in procuring the food, beyond having paid for it? Obviously, some people can afford to spend more than other people can. That doesn’t mean they have more love in them…it’s the person who puts in the effort to make the thing themselves that makes the gesture meaningful.

Circa 1965 Deviled Eggs, so called because that’s about when I learned how to make them. This is the one dish I make that everyone remembers, which amuses me no end because deviled eggs used to be one of those things everyone made. See above, Chris’s point about social foods.

Take some hard-cooked eggs. I usually just chuck them into a saucepan, cover with water, and put on low heat for half-an-hour while I go do something else. Then, let the eggs cool until they can be handled without pain, peel them,* and slice them in half lengthwise. Carefully pop out the yolks, dump them into a bowl, and arrange the egg halves hollow side up on a plate.

Mash the yolks with a fork until they’re mostly but not entirely smushed. The first trick to this recipe is that there are still some small chunks left in the yolk mixture. Then, mix in, for every three eggs or so, one tablespoon of strong deli-style mustard** and two tablespoons or so of mayonnaise. The mixture should be a sticky, soft, creamy, variably yellow mess when you’re done.

Pile the mush back into and onto the egg halves, using a couple of spoons, or the fork and a spoon, or clean fingers, anything but a bag. For this recipe, never, ever pipe the yolk mixture. When you’ve got all the egg halves piled high, sprinkle them all generously with hot paprika, which is the second trick to the recipe: it uses the flavor and heat of the paprika and not just its appearance.

*Use old eggs, the ones that have been sitting in the fridge for a week or better two, and they’ll almost always be easier to peel and slice. I can’t tell the difference in flavor, either, not in this recipe.

**If you can find it, which I haven’t for about two years now and DAMN their spotty distribution, the BEST deli-style mustard EVER is Ba-Tampte Mustard from Brooklyn. It says, ‘Means Tasty’ on the label, and they really mean it. But in a pinch any good, strong mustard will do.

Hoo-boy! On this one I can share a few. Sorry in advance for what will no doubt be a lengthy post.

First up, Parmesan mashed potatoes: What you do is get a couple of pounds of those little red skinned potatoes. They don’t have to be the baby kind, the baseball sized ones taste the same, they’re just cheaper. Anyway, wash them, but don’t remove the skins. Cut them into chunks, and boil them until they’re good and soft. You can put them in a big bowl to mash them, but I like to use my stand mixer. Dump them in there with a good drizzle of olive oil, and a splash of milk or cream if you like, and a couple of cloves of roasted garlic. (I buy the kind in the jar, and just keep it in the fridge, it’s nearly as good as homemade, and a whole lot easier. Once they get a good mashy consistency, with the number of lumps you happen to like, grate in a bunch of good Parmesan cheese, and stir it in. Try not to eat yourself into a coma before they hit the table.

My latest favorite discovery, Steak au Poivre: Get a couple of good steaks. We’re big fans of NY strip, but, whatever cut you like is good, and cover them with fresh ground pepper. Be generous with it, you want them to have a pepper crust, basically. Let them sit for a while and come to room temperature. Now, you heat some fat in a skillet. I keep some goose fat around in the fridge, and it’s like culinary magic, but, use oil if that’s what you’ve got. It will still be delicious. You want to get a good sear on the steaks, but leave the inside pink, please! Remove them from the skillet, and rest them. While they’re resting, you’re about to make some sauce. Dump a glass worth of red wine in that skillet, and use scrape up all the stuff stuck to the pan. Deglaze that bitch, in other words. Once you’ve got that dissolved in your wine, turn off the heat, and grab about half a stick of butter. You want to throw that in, one pat (like a half inch slice) at a time, and let it melt before you add the next. The sauce is going to thicken up as if by magic. Go slow with the butter. This still kicks ass if the sauce breaks, but, its prettier if it doesn’t. Once you’ve got that incorporated, plate up the beeves, and sauce them. Little extra sauce? Put it on the Parmesan potatoes. Oh, snap.

We need a veg! How about some asparagus with almonds and brown butter? Melt the other half of your stick of butter in a nice wide pan, and throw a handful of sliced almonds in there. Let that better get all foamy, like it does, and watch it. When the foam settles, it’s going to start to brown. Keep the heat low, browned good, burnt bad. When it’s a nice golden brown, give the whole thing a good swish, and pour it on top of some lightly steamed asparagus. Did someone say “more Parmesan?” Oh, good idea.

Here’s something we’ve done a few times recently, which is sort of Catalanian (there are similar versions with lamb). You take a whole, portioned chicken (or roughly a chicken’s worth of pieces), season them, rub them with pure (not virgin, which shouldn’t be used for cooking because the smoking point is too low) olive oil, then brown them in some more oil for six or seven minutes on each side in a skillet that has a lid (a Lodge cast-iron 12″ skillet or an enamelled pot will do).

Then add some thyme and forty cloves of garlic. Yes, forty. You don’t have to peel them, but it makes it easier later. Don’t chop them, or you’re asking for trouble. Put the lid on and bake in the oven for an hour and a half. Serve with toast, which you can just smear with the garlic (I just put the skillet in the middle of the table). It tastes freaking excellent.

A similar sort of thing is a garlic soup, which is just garlic in some boiling water with some herbs, maybe add an egg after it has simmered for a while, then dip in some stale bread (or make croutons). Things that are super simple, and that poor people used to make when they had nothing else, can be really good. That’s why I don’t like ‘gourmet’ cooking, on the whole, because it fails to make use of a whole range of techniques and possibilities and flavours; the sort of attitude that things are inferior just because they’re uncomplicated or inexpensive or unfashionable or commonplace.

The best Australian cooking often uses things in unexpected ways, often appropriating commercial products and repurposing them to different ends, which is kind of like the punk DIY ethic, but it’s old grannies who do it. The best Australian recipe website that I know of is http://www.exclusivelyfood.com.au/ – everything they do is spot on. It’s not gourmet food, it’s mostly familiar stuff done right, which I think is much, much better than exotic things done poorly.

Salmorejo – the finest Spanish-style starter in history (or, at least, in the history of Wood Green-based dinner parties):

1 tin of tomatoes
2 slices white bread (you may need more if you use the cheap plasticky stuff but it basically works just as well)
6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
White wine vinegar (to taste bgut start with two teaspoons)
Creme fraiche (I find 2 – 3 tablespoons is plenty)
3 cloves of garlic (more if you like but I find 1 – 1 1/2 cloves per person is plenty)
Fresh thyme and rosemary

Chop garlic and herbs finely. Put all ingredients in blender. Whizz until smooth. Add salt and pepper and more vinegar if needed – it should be piquant but not too sour. Optional – add a bit of cayenne pepper.

Chill in small dishes until you are ready to serve. Serve with a drizzle of olive oil and hard-boiled finely chopped eggs. Optional – add some jamon serrano finely chopped. Await compliments.

So, that recipe is really long and complicated to do exactly as is. So skip some stuff and do some stuff the easier way.
1. Forget the currants. Use raisins if you want, or just forget the whole thing.
2. Buttermilk — I suggest getting some powdered buttermilk so you always have it on hand. Maybe you could use regular milk, or half milk and half sour cream or yogurt instead.
3. Flour your pans with just flour, rather than the flour/cocoa/sugar mix.
4. You could forget the drizzling syrup, but I don’t suggest it. It’s quite good.
5. Currant jelly/jam is not necessary. I’ve used strawberry and blueberry with great success; just use what you’ve got in the house. And don’t bother to warm it up. If you spread it on a warm cake, it’ll go on easily enough.
6. Don’t use the suggested Bittersweet Icing. It takes for-fucking-ever. Just use any old good chocolate frosting. I usually use one modified from a recipe in Joy of Cooking (Melt together 3 oz baking chocolate and 3 T butter. Then stir in about 2 C powdered sugar, some vanilla extract, and about 1/2 C cocoa. Stick in fridge till cool enough to spread). If the frosting you choose is too sweet, add some cocoa powder to it.
7. Don’t need to put frosting between layers, jelly/jam itself is fine.
8. Cake is fine without walnuts stuck to sides.

@Harriet J: lmfao; I can’t tell if it’s a recipe, a religion, or stream of consciousness poetry.

Here’s a dip recipe I call “Make it delicious.” Take something you don’t like, do this to it, and it will be delicious. I first discovered it as a way to make Black Eyed Peas palatable, but I’ve had success with other vegetables, beans, lentils – pretty much anything can be rendered into paste and made delicious. (Adapted from original version on this awesome blog: http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/2008/12/black-eyed-pea-dip-for-new-year.html)

Ingredients:
1-2 cups edible material (legumes work best but experiment like it’s college again). Whatever it is should be cooked until tender but not quite mushy; I use canned beans straight out of the can.
bacon
garlic (a few fresh cloves, chopped or minced)
some onion, chopped (I won’t tell you how much because I use way more than most people like)
cilantro (unless you’re a cilantro-phobe, I guess… http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/dining/14curious.html)
lime juice
cheese – the original recipe called for monterey jack, which is a good place to start
seasonings – I typically use chili powder, cayenne, and a fresh serrano pepper, seeded and minced. Sometimes I use banana peppers, fresh ground cumin, or get really crazy with some cinnamon.

Cook bacon, crumble it into skillet. Cook garlic and onion in bacon grease; when they get soft and a little brown, add to blender with about a tablespoon of the grease.

Add the edible material of your choice, along with your seasonings and the lime juice. Blend to a dip-like consistency.

Transfer dip to bacon skillet and cook on low, folding in the cheese till it’s all melty. Put the resulting deliciousness in a bowl, top with more cheese, and devour while hot. I recommend tortilla chips, but if you lose control and dive in with your hands, I would totally understand.

I am forbidden from sharing the family brownie recipe with anyone not related by blood, but here, have cake made without milk (though there are traces of lactose in most margarines unless you find a specifically lactose-free brand, and of course the milk component of the chocolate chips).

Cream together margarine and sugar. Add eggs, then next 6 ingredients.
Mix well. Add applesauce. Mix. Pour into a greased 8-by-12-inch pan.
Sprinkle with chocolate chips (do NOT stir chips into batter as they will sink to the bottom). Bake for 40 minutes at 350 degrees, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

To make a large batch, throw the cabbage and garnishes together in a large bowl and toss to combine. Add the dressing and toss just before serving.

simple, cheap, and really tasty. it actually takes us a couple of days to finish a batch, so i like to shred a big batch of cabbage and keep all the ingredients in separate containers in the fridge so everyone can choose the proportions and garnishes they prefer.

When you make sweet iced tea (it is so funny to me, being a native northerner, that when you order “tea” up north you get a mug of hot tea, plain, with lemon and sugar on the side, and down south when you order “tea” you get a glass of sweetened iced tea), put a cinnamon stick or two in with the tea when you’re brewing it.

Heat oil in large non-stick skillet and “fry” the curry powder on medium-high heat for 3 – 4 minutes or until fragrant. Add onions and chicken and cook 7 – 8 minutes or until chicken is browned and cooked through (add a little more oil if necessary). Add tomatoes, tomato sauce, coconut milk and sugar and stir well. Reduce heat to medium or medium-low. Simmer uncovered, stirring frequently, for 1 hour or until sauce has reduced by about 1/3 and is thick and bright orange. Season with salt & pepper to taste and serve over hot rice. (We usually get 4 generous dinner servings + another 1 – 2 lunch servings out of this.)

From my contribution to the Fucking Awesome thread, here is Hangover Soup. It is the recipe otherwise known by me as Stone Soup, with a couple additions.

The thing about this soup is, you have to have prepared for it. So start now, when you’re not hung over. Every time you cook, take your onion and garlic skins, mushroom stems, carrot ends, celery tops, and other refinements and put them in the fridge. Then, when you are ready for some fucking awesome soup, take all that shit, put it in a huge stockpot, cover it with water, boil, then reduce heat and simmer. For like an hour, or however long you think. This is Stone Soup, after the Portuguese folk tale about finding plenty in scarcity.

To make it Hangover Soup, you need something extra. Ladle a portion of your Stone Soup (strained, natch, unless you love chewing onion paper) into a bowl over a spoonful of miso paste. Mix well. Add anything else you think sounds good about now–pasta, more vegetables, tofu, whatever. And here’s the clever bit: when you are done, squirt in some Sriracha or your preferred pepper sauce and stir it up, little darling. Et voila! This shit is fucking scrumptious with some toasted bread and goat cheese.

Mmm, frugality…this is the sort of thinking that leads to a career as a saucier. When Jamie Oliver disparages chicken nuggets for being made from all the leftover scrappy bits of chicken carcass, he’s indirectly insulting the most respected position in the classical French kitchen.

Holy shit, Fnord Prefect! I am going to make that vodka so hard as soon as I see a cucumber that doesn’t look like it got here by barge from Sri Lanka.

And Lapidary’s cottage eggs remind me of “brains and eggs”, which is apparently a thing that is delicious but I’ve never had the intestinal fortitude to try it. I, embarrassingly, like my eggs kind of rubbery anyhow by most people’s standards.

Speaking of tea…to make it North African style, brew some green tea and add a ton of fresh mint leaves. Steep for a while with the mint leaves still in (but remove the green tea after a couple of minutes or it will get bitter). Traditionally this would be served hot and very sweet, but it’s delicious iced too. Very refreshing on a hot day.

@ 897 – You’re welcome! Now if only someone could teach me how to cook Hamachi Kama, because that stuff is EXPENSIVE if you order it in a restaurant.

Mix that shit up and bake it at 325 for 20 minutes, stirring about 15 min. in. You could do it longer if the cheese still looks lumpy.
Consume massive amounts with dark rye or sourdough.
Sometimes I turn it from a dip into the 2nd-best cheese sandwich ever.

The Best Cheese Sandwich Ever
A handful of shredded cheddar – a loosely-packed tennis ball, perhaps?
A scoop and a half of mayo from a tablespoon – not a measuring spoon fool, those big ones in the cutlery drawer
A squirt of yellow mustard
Some butter
Some bread – I like wheat with those nuggets in it for this one

Mix the cheese, mayo and cheddar. Melt some butter in a saucepan. Spread cheese mixture evenly onto a slice of bread, put it cheese-up (duh) in the butter. Spread more butter on another slice of bread, put it butter-up onto what’s in the pan. After a while, flip that bitch. After a little while more, enjoy scalding cheesy goodness with a crunchy, buttery, chewy outer layer.

Formulaic Stuffed Things: The fun thing about this recipe is that it works like a mix and match. When you need Wet Things, pick what you have or feel like using. Same with aromatics, fillers, and flavors. As long as you have something doing the job of each group, your Flavor Melange will come out right.

Group One: THINGS TO STUFF
(If you’re using something with guts, slice them open the long way, scoop them out, chop well, and salt to drain while you prep the rest).

Add binding things- around 2/3 c. rice or breadcrumbs will do.
Add however much flavor things you feel like. Enough to know they’re in there.
Add wet things, a few generous glugs of wine, a couple of fresh tomatoes diced, a can of tomatoes, generous glugs of wine. Some wine. You know, like that.

The idea is to get your flavor-melange to hold together with the wet stuff.

Scoop your flavor melange into your Thing to Stuff. Nestle the Stuffed Things in a baking dish to hold them, and add a few generous glugs of wine, water, or broth. Cover with foil and bake in a 400 degree oven till the Stuffed Thing is done (start checking at 30 minutes). Uncover when you think the Stuffed Things are just about done. Sprinkle some more cheese or nuts on top of the Stuffed Things, if you feel like it. Let the tops brown in the oven for the last 10 minutes or so, enough so you have Crunchy Deliciousness.

You may find you have more filling than you have Stuffables. This is not a sorry thing- just bake the filling or eat it straight next day, rewarmed.

Dig in the fridge and dig out any bits of onion, slightly wilty spinach, cheese ends, leftover cooked meat and the last 2 mushrooms.

Spray your largest non-stick pan with cooking spray. Chop up all the odds and ends, except for the cheese. Throw them in the pan w/ a little oil and cook ’em up. Beat 5-6 eggs with a splash of milk and a splash of tabasco (trust me.) Grate the cheese into the egg mixture. Pour it on top of your sauteed stuff. Let it sit on the burner for a minute, until it starts to bubble, then put in 350 degree oven for 5-ish minutes. When the middle doesn’t wiggle, it’s done.

You can impress the hell out of your husband/wife/partner/cat/talking cactus by flipping this out onto a plate or just take pieces straight out of the pan.

My husband thinks this recipe is genius – I don’t have the heart to tell him it’s how I clean out the fridge every weekend.

This sauce is so good I will lick the plate, the gravy boat, and the gravy ladle to not waste a single drop of it. There was someone upthread who didn’t like mushrooms. Sista, you are FUCKED with this recipes; avert your eyes and pass on.

Mushrooms all sliced up. Supposed to be 1/4 lb, but more like 3/4
Onions or scallions, all sliced up. Scallions is fancier because they show green.
Butter
Flour
Beef stock
red wine

Cut up whatever mushrooms you haven’t used at this point in the shopping cycle. Chop up an onion or two or a scallion or two. You should end up with a couple cups, mostly mushrooms.

Light the burner, then turn it down halfway. Melt half a stick of butter in a sauce pan. Preferably something with a nice heavy bottom so you can simmer stuff for a while without burning. When the butter’s mostly melted but before it burns, dump in the mushrooms and onions. Stir them around good so all the mushrooms get a chance to soak up some butter. Let them sautee until nice and soft.

Sprinkle in 4 tablespoons of flour, one tablespoon at a time, stirring well in between each spoonful so there aren’t any lumps of flour. Cook it just enough to lose the raw flour taste. Take a cup and a half of beef stock, and pour it into the pan in 4-5 batches, stirring well in between each batch until there are no more lumps.

Let it simmer while you go cook something to go under it. I love it with steak, pork chops, chicken, anything. Rice is good, especially the yellow goya rice. Mash potatoes would be good, too, except I almost never make mash potatoes for just the two of us. Whatever veggies you like. Salad probably won’t work so well with this, but everything else is good.

Pour in a quarter cup of red wine. Stir. Let it cook for just a minute more while you set the table.

If you want to get two meals out of it, split it up in the kitchen, because anything that goes out to the table will get eaten.

Pasta with sausage and greens. This is an especially fantastic way to eat leafy greens, which I basically crave all the time!

One bag of rotini, or another sort of pasta that will hold sauce well
1-3 cloves garlic (I love garlic. Others, for some reason, may not love garlic so much, and should use less)
1 small onion, diced
2 medium-sized bunches leafy greens, large stems discarded and cut into one inch strips (I like to use a combination of swiss chard and kale, but you can also use regular chard, mustard greens, or any other more mild green)
2 T apple cider vinegar
1 lb sweet italian sausage, taken out of its casings and chopped (I use turkey sausage but pork or vegetarian sausage work just as well)
salt and pepper to taste
parmesan cheese

In a very large skillet, cook the onions and garlic in olive oil until the onions are translucent
Add the sausage and brown
Add the apple cider vinegar, salt, pepper, and greens. Cover and cook about 10 minutes, until the greens have reduced and are a dark green color, but they should still have a bit of texture to them (nothing worse than wimpy greens). A note: the greens will seem like way too much when you are chopping them up, but they reduce A LOT. Be prepared.
While making the vegetables, boil water and cook the pasta until al dente, drain (don’t forget to salt your pasta water!)
Fill a bowl with pasta and top with greens and sausage. Add a liberal helping of parmesan cheese and enjoy!

Chinese-style noodle soup:
Finely chopped or minced ginger (you can buy it in a jar, makes no difference)
Finely chopped or minced garlic (same)
Spring onions/salad onions
Stock (I use chicken, but veggie and beef work fine too)
Chinese spice mix (Bought ones are usually called ‘Chinese 5-Spice’ or some such, available in most supermarkets and very useful)
Chilli powder
Cinnamon
Your favourite veggies – I normally use carrots and broccoli, but anything you can boil or fry is good.
Sesame oil (optional)
Soy sauce
Dried noodles
Toasted sesame seeds (optional)

(For two people, or one for now and one in the fridge for later, which is how I do it)
(Also, I flat-out don’t measure stuff when I make this, so the quantities are rough guides.)

First, put the kettle on.

Fry the ginger and garlic in a generous amount of oil at the bottom of a saucepan. The amount is about one teaspoon of each for every two bowls of soup you’re hoping to make, or more if you like it hot. When this is turning brown, add a splash of spice mix (couple of heaped teaspoons), a teaspoon of cinnamon and half a teaspoon of chilli powder. Fry the spices for a minute or so before adding a generous splash of soy sauce, which should go all bubbly and caramelised. Add finely chopped spring onions and fry for a little longer.

Add the carrots and/or whatever other vegetables there are, and fry them for a minute or so, adding more oil and or soy sauce if the pan goes dry. Then crumble the stock into the pan (cube per person) and add boiling water slowly, stirring to ensure there are no lumps. At this stage you should taste the soup and add more spices or chilli if you feel it’s a bit bland, or more water if it’s too hot for you. When the vegetables are nearly cooked, add noodles.

Reading the WE’RE FUCKING AWESOME post’s comments, I found myself constantly impressed with all the knitters. Knitting! OMG! I cannot knit and I’m envious of those who can. I’ve got excellent manual dexterity, but knitting and crocheting eludes me. I’m more likely to end up with one of the hooks/needles up my nose than I am to make anything. You people that can make scarves and socks and sweaters and blankets and stuff? YOU ARE SO AWESOME OMG.

@anna: Self-Esteem Bars! That’s BRILLIANT. I have these… THINGS that I make that make people gasp and moan, and they are also super-simple. Isn’t it fun to know you can bring people such joy from doing something relatively simple?

Soften the cream cheese. Or if you forgot to soften the cream cheese, just throw it in a bowl and attack it with a fork for a bit. Add the salsa, and fork it together with the cream cheese until you’ve got something relatively uniform. (The moisture/acidity from the salsa totally helps with the blending.) Mix in the green onion and the shredded cheddar. If too thick to stir, add more salsa. If too thin, add more cheese/onion.

Rip off a square of tinfoil large enough to set a tortilla on. Set the tortilla on it. Toss a lump of the mixture down on the tortilla, and spread it out so it covers about a half to two-thirds of the thing. Roll that sucker up into a log, then seal the log up in the tinfoil. Pinch the ends. Repeat ’till you run out of filling. (You can fill 4-5 large tortillas, or 6-7 smaller ones.)

Stick the logs in the fridge. They ought to chill for 1-2 hours, and can hang out in there for up to a day if need be. When ready to serve, take ’em out, unwrap ’em, and cut ’em into segments. (Optional step: eat all the funky-looking end pieces yourself! Mmm, end pieces.)

I’m vegan, and cooking is one of my favorite activities, so I do a LOT of it (check out my blog and you’ll see what I mean). That being the case, it was hard to pick one “signature” recipe, but this casserole is a fail-safe standby, so here you go!

Directions:
~Preheat the oven to 375 degrees fahrenheit.
~ In a large pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions, scallions, celery and garlic, and sauté about 5 minutes.
~ Add the jalapenos, bell pepper, carrots, squash, mushrooms and all the seasonings except the cilantro; sauté another 10 minutes or so, until the veggies are getting soft.
~ Add the tomatoes, beans and cilantro, if using. Mix well, bring to a simmer and reduce heat to low. Continue cooking until everything is nicely combined and fairly gloppy (we’re going for a sort of sloppy joe-like texture here).

Directions:
~ In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt.
~ In a blender or food processor, blend the coconut milk, corn kernels, scallions, oil, agave syrup, and rosemary until smooth.
~ Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the mixture from the blender. Stir until thoroughly combined.
~ Pour the bean and vegetable mixture into a large, greased casserole dish, spread the cornbread batter on top and bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes, until the top is crunchy and golden brown. Allow to cool and set up for about 20 minutes before slicing into huge slabs and serving with guacamole and a green salad.

Since moving to a country where I can’t identify most of the meat or figure out how to cook it, I’ve almost lived on the following recipe. Some assembly is required, but I promise you it’s not that hard. It does take time though.

You don’t have to brine it, but it does allow you to overcook the chicken slightly without ruining it.

If you are brining, dissolve the salt and sugar in the water, hopefully in a large plastic container. Wash chicken, add chicken to brine and keep in refrigerator at least one hour.

If not brining, just wash the chicken and dry it with paper towels. I like to cut mine in half with a pair of kitchen shears. Cut along the backbone on both sides, take out the backbone, then flip the chicken over and cut through the breastbone. Roasting all pieces seperately makes the skin crispier.

Mix the salt, pepper and thyme (i use about half a cup of salt, 1/4 cup pepper and 1/4 cup thyme) in a small dish.

Loosen the skin of the chicken and rub the salt mixture under the skin. I like to use more on the legs and thighs than on the breast, because the dark meat can use the extra seasoning.

Rub a little extra on the skin itself. Blot the skin with paper towels to get rid of excess moisture.

Put the seasoned chicken back in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

Grease a large rectangular pan. Add the vegetables. I add maybe 1/4 cup of water to keep them from drying out.

Heat the oven to 425 degrees. (Or, if you are living in a country where the oven dials are in some strange code that you don’t understand, turn the dial about 3/4 of the way up). The oven rack should be slightly above middle position.

Arrange chicken over vegetables. Add to oven.

Bake at 425 for about 20 minutes, then turn down to 350 degrees for about 20-25 minutes more.

At the end of all this you should have a crispy, golden chicken with some nice caramelized vegetables. Serves two starving artists.

The ones that impress me are the musical gifts and the languages – I would so love to be able to do those – yet knitting and cooking just seem to me like following instructions. Odd how we tend to fob off or devalue the things we can do!

My easiest Fucking Delicious Recipe is mango and red onion salsa: 2 diced mangoes, 1 finely chopped red onion, a handful of chopped coriander, a squeeze of lime juice. Mix and scoff as a salad or side dish, or scoop up with tortilla chips.

6. When the meat is pretty much cooked through, add three cans of beans, rinsed and drained. I use one can each of black, pinto, and dark red kidney beans, but you can use whatever beans you like and/or have on-hand.

7. Add 1-2, 14.5-oz. cans of diced tomatoes, along with about half a jar of salsa, depending on how soupy or thick you like your chili. You can also add a can on New Mexico green chile at this point, if you like. :)

8. Bring the whole mixture to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook slowly for a few hours, until everything is cooked through and the flavors have blended. Adjust seasonings as needed.

I usually cook more precisely than this, but this “recipe” has worked pretty well for us. It freezes beautifully, and you can adjust everything based on what’s in your kitchen. Prefer fresh veggies and chopping? Go for that instead of the frozen veg. Have some carrots you need to use up? Dice ’em and throw into the pot at the beginning.

It ain’t pretty, but it’s tasty. Shred some cheddar or jack cheese over the top, serve with tortilla chips or corn bread. Enjoy!

Mix together cake mix and pineapple to make batter. Put cupcake liners in a muffin pan and fill liners about 3/4. Bake on 350 for 12 – 15 minutes, until edges get slightly brown. (Or less, if you like them less done). Makes 24 – 36, depending on how much you fill them.

Yummy. The pineapple kind of rises to the top to make a glaze, and you get this sweet cross between a muffin and a cupcake that’s great for breakfast or a sweet snack.

1. Toss the brussels sprouts and shallot slices in olive oil with the salt and pepper.
2. Heat some butter in a big pan.
3. Put the sprouts and shallots in the pan, and cover it up.
4. Stir it every so often to prevent sticking.
5. After however long, add the apple slices.
6. After between 15 and 45 minutes, this will become delicious. Taste brussels sprouts as it cooks to gauge the deliciousness. It’s still tasty blackened, so I’d say you can’t cook it too long.

You could probably add some bacon, too, but I haven’t tried that.

Also, easy easy easy tuna noodle casserole, which is also delicious.
1 bag rainbow rotini, cooked + 1 pouch tuna + 1 can, cream of mushroom soup + some frozen peas: put them in a casserole dish and stir them up. Sprinkle cheese on top. Cook at 350 for about 12 minutes, or until the pasta starts looking dry on the corners.

Mix (it’s a bit sloppy at first, but thickens). Roll into balls & squash a little bit with a fork dipped in sugar. Cook at regular cookie-cooking temperatures for usual time until done.

Beer bread:
3 cups self raising flour
2 tbsp of something sweet (I like golden syrup)
1 can beer (or 375ml liquid)
Mix. Put in something. Cook it at a reasonable temperature (or wrapped in foil in a campfire) until a skewer comes out clean. Also very good with chopped dried apricot or pawpaw in it.

Beat egg whites until very stiff. Gradually beat in sugar and lemon juice (and cornstarch, if you like). Shape into round shape on greasproof paper on a baking sheet and cook at low temperature (120 Celsius) for 1 hour 20 minutes and then leave in oven to cool. Top with sweetened whipped cream and assorted fruit.

I get most of my recipes from thepioneerwoman.com or Smitten Kitchen now. I am almost never disappointed.

Also, here’s GINGER COOKIES from my childhood. They come out soft and yummy but you might have to adjust the oven temperature slightly if they’re coming out brown on the bottom before they look cooked.

Mix these ingredients together in a large bowl with wooden spoon.
Then add the dry ingredients in stages.
Roll dough into balls, and dip in white sugar. Do not flatten.
Bake at 350 degrees for approx. 10 minutes.

I freely admit that so many of my faves come from this website: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/ A note that her recipes are also gluten free or can be she makes notes AND she has made all the recipes and notes her failures so hooray.

This is her recipe for Brown Sugar Chicken with some of my changes to it at the end.

Plop the chicken into your crockpot. Cover with the brown sugar, pepper, chopped garlic, and soy sauce. Add the vinegar, and pour in the soda. It will bubble!

Cover and cook on low for 6-9 hours, or on high for 4-5. The chicken is done when it is cooked through and has reached desired consistency. The longer you cook it, the more tender it will be.

Serve over a bowl of white rice with a ladle full of the broth.

PS We varied this by using CocaCola for the soda and Balsamic vinegar plus adding a teaspoon or so of Chinese 5 spice powder. We also have made this with: country style ribs, or boneless pork chops, a cheap pork roast. It is rich and it goes a long way over rice AND my picky kid will eat it.

– Boil some water. Add some pepper.
– Cook the macaroni and add the cheese according to manufacturers instructions. Add some pepper.
– Add some more pepper, and when you think you couldn’t possibly add more pepper, ADD MORE PEPPER.
-Spoon into soup bowls and serve with pepper shaker.

I love this thread so much! I love that all the recipes are these versatile, adaptable things instead of a Prescription You Must Follow.

octopod–don’t worry exorbitantly about the quality of the cucumber; you’re not eating it, you just need its watery goodness. I have also seen it done with other spices–cinnamon, tarragon, ginger–but cucumber is just so unexpected and refreshing.

I am thinking hard about making a batch of Power Cookies later. Flour, oatmeal, sugar, applesauce, almond milk, peanut butter, chocolate chips, walnuts, raisins… Basically, it’s like Laura512’s awesome frittata recipe only I’m cleaning out the pantry instead of the fridge. Mix well, bake at like 400 or thereabouts for a certain amount of time until the dough blobs resemble cookies.

This morning’s food adventure was kickass chocolate chip cookies:
Make your favorite classic chocolate chip cookie recipe. Before you add the flour, stir the zest of one orange into the wet ingredients. Really, try this. I made these yesterday and they were practically flying off the cooling rack. Today, I made more. :-)

lapidary: Thanks for the idea for the cottage eggs! I had cottage eggs on toast for lunch today, along with the naked orange left over from this morning’s baking. :-)

I’m terribly late to the thread, but I couldn’t find my copy of this recipe! It’s modified slightly from a recipe in The Sweet Potato Queens’ Big Ass Cookbook and Financial Planner (complete with mild cursing), and I forget what they call it, but I call it…

Cook the pasta and fry and crumble the bacon, preferably at the same time. Fry the chopped up onion in your bacon grease. Hold on to all that for a bit.

The Sauce: melt the stick of butter in a large-ish saucepan (big enough to hold your pasta and shitton of cheese also, later). Add flour and whisk until smooth, then add milk, pepper, and seasoning salt, and stir really fucking enthusiastically until it thickens. Seriously, keep stirring or the shit on the bottom will burn. Then add the cup of cheese and stir until melty and awesome.

Dump the pasta, bacon, onion, and the remaining pound of cheese into the sauce, and stir it up really well. Put all that into a greased 13 x 9 x 2″ dish. Top with frozen tater tots, arranged in a nice mosaic fashion to cover the whole surface in a single layer. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and bake at 375 for about an hour, or until things look all bubbly and crispy. Serve to large groups (really, this thing is enormous) and watch their confusion and joy, because seriously, it’s tater tot casserole and macaroni and cheese at the same time here, people!

Also, speaking of social food, a extra fucking special bonus recipe that I cribbed off the interwebs somewhere (alas, I don’t remember where) and again modified a bit:

Chop pepperoni finely in a food processor or blender. Throw that, the cream cheese, and the soup into a microwave-safe dish and nuke, stirring occasionally, until orange and hot. Dip munchies of choice into it (I prefer bread, bagels pieces, etc.) and make sure you eat it all while it’s hot the first time, because shit does not reheat worth a damn.

Open can beans. Rinse. Place in bowl. Dust with spices, salt, pepper. Place in microwave, heat 2 mins or so. Meanwhile, fry egg sunny side up so yolk is still runny (unless you are a firm yolked HEATHEN). Ahem. I have strong opinions about runny yolks.

Anyway. Clock is ticking. Remove beans. Put glugs of olive oil on, stir. Make a little well for eggy. Plop in Mr. Egg. Top with guac, sour cream.

Eat with little yummy noises and sighs of contentment and potentially more sour cream and cheese.

(Made to console myself after a sad lunch incident where I forgot that Qdoba and Chipotle were Not the Same Place and had a very Dubious and soapy tasting quesadilla which I did not finish).

Wash your hands in cold water and set a mug of cold water to one side, and a clean plate to one side to put the meatballs on.

In a large bowl, mix the ground turkey well with the salt and spices. Add in the olive oil, eggs, parsley, and bread crumbs and mix GENTLY from here on out. Make the meatballs GENTLY between your palms, as if you had arthritis. They will still be fairly wet, but they should hold a shape without being too runny. Set aside.

Heat 1 inch of oil in a deep skillet. When the oil bubbles, add in the meatballs in batches without crowding, and cook until browned on all sides, 1-3 minutes. Remove with tongs and set aside to drain on a plate covered with paper towels.

In the meantime (you can set this up before you make the meatballs so it can get cooking while you fry them up), the tomato sauce should be getting ready for its meaty charges.

Tip: Always use whole canned tomatoes for a better taste (fewer preservatives get on the tomatoes this way). But to crush them without getting juice everywhere, you can either put the can down in the sink and stick your hand in–while covering the opening with a towel–and get to work, OR empty the whole business into a Cuisinart and pulse it once or twice. Be careful not to pulse too much, though, as you do not want tomato puree!

Viz: Tomato paste. I personally am a huge pan of the tubes, as they are reusable and generally of a higher quality. You can also make your own paste, but really, who does that?
*******

Anyway, after the sauce has been going for about half the time you estimate it is going to need to cook, add in the meatballs and let them cook with the sauce for at least 10 minutes, preferably 15. Remove from heat and serve over hot spaghetti.

Wait, you say. Where’d the spaghetti come from?

Spaghetti:

1 pot very salty boiling water.
1 pkg spaghetti.

Throw pasta in water. Cook. Drain. Eat. Live!

10 Things to Know About Spaghetti:

1) Salty water like sea water. Mean it, own it, live it.
2) Al dente means chewy. Turn off the heat a minute before you anticipate needing to drain the pasta to avoid overdone noodles. You can also throw a noodle against the wall and see if it sticks (if it sticks, it’s good).
3) Don’t buy whole grain pasta.
4) Do always buy pasta made with durum wheat.
6) IF YOU BREAK YOUR PASTA, I WILL BREAK YOU, BITCH.
7) Don’t get all fancy and think you need fresh pasta for this dish. You don’t. Fresh pasta isn’t automatically better.
8) When you drain the pasta, try to remember to reserve about 1/4 cup of the cooking water. Stir it back into the pasta bowl. Yay, non-sticking together pasta!
9) If you can, heat the bowls you serve the pasta in, and serve pasta immediately.
10) You eat pasta with a fork and a spoon. Not a fork and a knife. Take note.

(modified slightly from the Joy of Cooking, 1998 edition)
Make one crumb crust (graham cracker preferable), pre-bake and set aside.*
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees with a rack in the center of the oven.
Whisk together well:
One 15 oz can sweetened condensed whole milk
4 large egg yolks
1/2 cup fresh strained key lime juice
3-4 tsp grated lime zest, reserve extra for whipped cream, if desired.

Pour mixture into (hopefully still warm) crumb crust. Bake 15-17 mins until the filling still jiggles just a bit when you nudge it, but doesn’t ripple. Let cool completely, stick in the fridge until cold, serve topped with whipped cream.**

You should know that even if you hit the custard done-ness perfectly, this pie doesn’t slice super-cleanly. Not that it matters all that much to anyone I’ve seen eat it!

** I use a quart of heavy cream, 2-3 tsp of zest, and 1/2 cup powdered sugar, whipped until stiff peaks form.

Notes:
1) Use real key limes, and find the patience within yourself to juice them individually until you get the 1/2 cup of juice needed. You’ll need at least a dozen. If you can’t find them, don’t bother and go make a nice lemon custard instead.
2) Use real whipping cream, not the stuff in a can. Add some key lime zest to it if you like, along with 1/4 cup of powdered sugar for each 3/4 cup cream. Make more cream than you need to top the pie. Trust me, it’ll get eaten.

3) Make the graham cracker crust and prebake it for a better taste. No fussing around with pastry or nuts. Which brings me to my final points–

5) Don’t gussy this up too much. You want Carnation condensed milk, the Nabisco plain or cinnamon grahams, etc. I suppose if you must, feel free to use organic/premium eggs and heavy cream.

6) By no means attempt to cut the fat in this recipe. If you do I’ll have to come find you and beat you about the ears with a spoon. USE THE DAMN EGG YOLKS. USE ALL OF THEM. Or don’t make the pie. This is my line and I’m stickin’ to it.

I made a chocolate-chip pumpkin muffin recipe a friend posted on her blog last week, and they were amazing. I can’t usually get my son or husband to eat muffins–I love them so I make them anyway, but I find it hard to really enjoy something I baked if nobody else will share it with me–but they ate these up. I halved the recipe, made 12 slightly bigger muffins, and had to bake them for about 25 minutes.

@Fnord Prefect – Agreed. Recipes should be adaptable. Any time I see one that’s all “stir for exactly 27 seconds, at no more than 78 degrees, or the recipe will be a failure and so will you” I ignore it.

This refusal to adhere to precise rules may be why I’m a great cook but a shitty baker.

Not my own recipe, but I’ve been having this for lunch all week and it’s SO delicious. I suspect it’s fairly adaptable to other protein / crunchy veg / fresh herbs / zingy dressing combination too:Vietnamese chicken salad

Dump the rice into the pan, break it up, and stir it around a bit until it is friends with the bacon fat. (Not hard. Bacon fat loves everyone.)

Sprinkle soup mix over rice. Stir until the powder part is evenly distributed. Rice should be sort of khaki-colored.

Douse with soy sauce. Stir. Rice should be more tan.

Drizzle a couple turns of molasses into the pan. Stir. Rice should start getting brown by this point. Taste for sweet/salty balance; add whichever thing it needs more of. (Remember to go a little light on the salty, because you will:)

Return bacon to pan. Stir in.

Enjoy. Cheer. Thank Maude for Granny Yvonne (who is not even your granny, but shared this wonderful recipe anyway). I warn you, though, your chopsticks might try and mutiny if you eat this with them.

Two tubes of crescent rolls (for a total of 16)
1 lb of ground meat
Two packages of taco seasoning
Cheese
Salsa
Sour cream
whatever condiments you want.

Preheat the over to the temp on the package for the rolls.

Brown the meat and mix in the taco seasoning (made up with enough water for one packet-ish).

I find that a pizza pan works best, but any flat one will do. Cover the pizza pan with foil and arrange the pieces of dough in an overlapping circle so the skinny point of the triangle is to the outside.

Carefully put the meat on top of the dough on the parts that are overlapped. Sprinkle cheese on top of the meat, then take those skinny points and fold them over on top of the meat and tuck them under the inside of the dough. Put more cheese on top if you want.

Bake according to the directions on the tube for the rolls. Serve with your favorite taco condiments. Noms!

1 Sicilian eggplant or other good Italian variety — I never find that the dark purple supermarket eggplants work well for this

Sweet apples — like Pink Lady or Royal Gala, enough of them to have the same volume as you do of eggplant

1 small onion of your favourite variety

Fresh rosemary

Olive oil

Peel the apples. Dice the onion, apples, and eggplant into small pieces. Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet and add the onions. Cook until translucent or slightly brown.

Add the eggplant and apple, and put a lid on the skillet. Let it cook on medium-low heat for a few minutes until everything starts to get soft. Snip the rosemary into tiny pieces, stir it in, and let it cook some more. If you want it chunky don’t let it cook too long; if you want it more saucy cook it longer.

You could serve this with meat. I’m a vegetarian, I had it with roasted root veggies and smelly cheese and fresh bread.

@Christine, I volunteer twice a week at an NGO in Lima, Peru. (I help teach the cooking classes; the organization trains women how to be domestic workers.) I chose your recipe because it sounded amazing, and it was! Fourteen Peruvians thought your Curried Coconut Chicken was very “rico” and they all want the recipe!